Kolkata

Around 63.66 lakh names — nearly 8.3 per cent of the electorate — have been deleted in West Bengal since the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) began in November last year, bringing the total number of voters in the state to over 7.04 crore ahead of the assembly elections due in April, Election Commission officials said.

The post-SIR electoral rolls, released on Saturday after a 116-day exercise, also show that over 60 lakh electors have been placed in the “under adjudication” category. Their status will be decided by judicial officers in the coming weeks, a process that could further recalibrate constituency-level equations.

The draft rolls, published on December 16, had reduced the electorate from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore, deleting over 58 lakh names on grounds of death, migration, duplication and untraceability. Following hearings and the disposal of claims and objections, another 5,46,053 deletions were recorded through Form-7 applications, taking the total SIR-linked deletions to around 63.66 lakh.

More than 1.82 lakh electors were added through Form-6 and Form-6A submissions, partially offsetting the deletions. Officials said figures could witness marginal changes as fresh inclusions and objections continue to be processed.

Earlier in the day, a senior official from the Chief Electoral Officer’s office indicated that nearly eight lakh names could be deleted over and above the 58 lakh removed in the draft stage, potentially pushing total deletions to around 66 lakh. However, the final tally following the post-SIR publication may still evolve.

Significantly, about 60.06 lakh voters have been placed under adjudication, largely due to what officials termed “logical discrepancies” in their enumeration forms. These names have been retained in the rolls pending adjudication.

Over 58 lakh enumeration forms were not received during the exercise, including in cases involving deceased, shifted or duplicate electors. Of the 7.08 crore names in the draft rolls, around 6.4 crore have been marked as “approved” so far.

The Election Commission described the SIR — the first statewide intensive revision since 2002 — as a statutory clean-up exercise aimed at ensuring a “pure and error-free” roll ahead of a major election.

Constituency-level impact

District and constituency-level data reflect the scale of the revision.

In Bhabanipur constituency, represented by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, 47,094 names have been deleted — 44,786 at the draft stage and another 2,324 in the final publication — while over 14,000 electors have been placed under adjudication. The total deletions are roughly 11,000 fewer than Banerjee’s victory margin of over 58,000 votes in the 2021 bypoll.

Nadia district, bordering Bangladesh, saw around 2.73 lakh deletions, with the electorate declining from 44.18 lakh at the start of the SIR to 41.45 lakh in the final rolls.

Bankura recorded a net reduction of about 1.18 lakh names. From 30,33,830 voters in November, the final figure now stands at around 29.15 lakh.

North Kolkata, comprising seven assembly constituencies currently held by the Trinamool Congress (TMC), witnessed around 4.07 lakh deletions during the SIR, including 3.9 lakh at the draft stage and another 17,000 in the final list.

Alipurduar registered 1,02,835 deletions, with 11,96,651 names in the final rolls.

In Hooghly, the electorate dipped from 47,75,099 at the beginning of the process to 44,40,293, reflecting a total deletion of 3,34,806 names. Around 1,73,064 voters remain under adjudication.

Political flashpoint

The scale of deletions and the large pool of voters under adjudication have turned the SIR into a political flashpoint ahead of the assembly polls.

The TMC alleged that “harassment in the name of SIR” had reached extreme levels and warned of political and legal agitation if valid voters were struck off. The party accused the BJP of seeking electoral gains through deletions, a charge rejected by the saffron party.

The BJP maintained that elections must be contested on the basis of finalised rolls and that political parties should not question a statutory revision exercise.

In the 2021 assembly elections, several seats were decided by narrow margins of a few thousand votes. In border districts such as Nadia and North 24 Parganas, as well as in tribal and urban belts, demographic shifts and migration patterns have historically influenced booth-level outcomes.

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With a swing of even 2,000 to 3,000 votes capable of altering results in closely fought constituencies, political parties have intensified booth-level scrutiny, cross-checking names and preparing appeals as the state heads into another high-stakes electoral contest.