SIR 2.0: Election Commission publishes draft electoral rolls in 5 regions

SIR 2.0: 5.8 million voters deleted in West Bengal

The Election Commission (EC) on Tuesday published draft electoral rolls of West Bengal, Rajasthan, Goa, Puducherry and Lakshadweep following the special intensive revision (SIR).

 

It deleted the names of 5.8 million voters in West Bengal (7.59 per cent of the total electors before SIR), 4.18 million (7.65 per cent) in Rajasthan, 1,429 (2.47 per cent) in Lakshadweep, 100,042 (8.44 per cent) in Goa and 103,467 (10.12 per cent) in Puducherry on various grounds, including death, migration, and non-submission of enumeration forms, officials said.

 

The month-long hearing process, or the ‘claims and objections’ phase, will begin from December 16, where genuine electors will have the opportunity to get their names added to the electoral rolls, the EC said. The final electoral rolls will be published on February 14. Those found to be enrolled in two places will be retained as electors at one of the two places.

 

 

In West Bengal, the highest deletions were in Kolkata South (23.82 per cent) and Kolkata North (25.92 per cent). In Kolkata South, 8.89 per cent electors were found to have migrated, 7.77 per cent were untraceable or absent and 6.34 per cent had been deceased. In Kolkata North, 8.4 per cent were found to have migrated, 8.9 per cent were untraceable or absent and 7.38 per cent have died.

 

In Kolkata North district, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Bhabanipur seat, home to a significant number of migrants, including those from Gujarat, has emerged as one of the most affected in terms of deletions of electors. Bhabanipur recorded 44,787 deletions from 206,295 voters listed in January 2025. Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari’s Nandigram logged 10,599 deletions from 278,212 voters.

 

The ruling Trinamool Congress said that West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls have punctured Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari’s claim that the state hosts “10 million Rohingyas and Bangladeshis”, with the number of voters identified as ‘fake’ or ‘ghost’ pegged at 183,328. Adhikari replied: “This is just the beginning. Breakfast has just begun. There will be lunch, tea and then dinner.”

 

Trinamool spokesperson Krishanu Mitra said, “In the draft rolls, around 5.8 million voters have been deleted. As per the Border Security Force data, around 4,000 people have crossed back into Bangladesh through the Hakimpur border. What we are hearing is that in nearly 80 per cent Muslim-dominated constituencies, the average deletion rate is 0.6 per cent, while in Matua-dominated regions the average deletion rate is around 9 per cent.”

 

Special Roll Observer for West Bengal, Subrata Gupta, said voters whose names did not appear in the draft list should not panic, noting that around three million voters whose details could not be matched with the 2002 electoral rolls would be called for hearings to establish eligibility.

 

On Tuesday, around 200 members of a forum of booth-level officers (BLOs) held a demonstration outside the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer’s office in Kolkata. They protested against the alleged deletion of thousands of genuine voters in the draft electoral rolls under the SIR. Surya Dey, a Trinamool Congress councillor of Dankuni civic body, on Tuesday walked into a crematorium near Kolkata and demanded that his last rites be performed, claiming that the EC listed him among the “dead” in the draft electoral rolls.