No booth rationalisation in West Bengal assembly polls: ECI

Kolkata: There will be no booth rationalisation in the Bengal assembly polls. The total number of booths will stand at 80,738, a top ECI official said on Wednesday.

Earlier, ECI had directed poll officials to rationalise polling stations with over 1,200 voters to enhance voter accessibility. District Election Officers (DEOs), who are District Magistrates, were instructed to conduct surveys to identify new locations in high-rise buildings, group housing societies and slum clusters.

Previously, the total number of booths stood at 80,681 when the Bengal SIR began on November 4, 2025. With the ECI focusing on booths in high-rises for greater accessibility, altogether 57 polling booths will be set up in high -rise buildings across Bengal, the official said. Out of these, 25 booths will be in South 24 Parganas, 16 in North 24 Parganas, one in South Kolkata, five in North Kolkata, four in Howrah, three in Hooghly and three in East Bardhaman districts.


In December last year, the poll body had instructed the DEOs to complete rationalisation of polling stations by December 2025. Similar instructions have been issued to other states and UTs where the SIR is underway.