Kolkata

The Election Commission has found that nearly 26 lakh voter names in West Bengal’s current electoral rolls do not match entries from the 2002 voter list, an official said on Wednesday.

The discrepancy surfaced after the latest state voter rolls were compared with those prepared across various states between 2002 and 2006 during the earlier SIR exercise.

According to EC sources, over six crore enumeration forms in Bengal had been digitised by Wednesday afternoon as part of the ongoing SIR process. These digitised forms are then matched with previous SIR records, and initial results show that around 26 lakh names have not yet been reconciled. The number is expected to rise as digitisation continues.

In the electoral process, “mapping” refers to cross-verifying the current voter list with the SIR rolls from 2002. This year, the exercise also incorporated rolls from other states to ensure more accurate verification.

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Officials clarified that a mismatch during mapping does not automatically lead to a voter’s removal from the final electoral roll.