West Bengal voter list may shrink by 68 lakh from 2024 Lok Sabha polls; final list on Feb 28

Kolkata: West Bengal’s voter count is expected to decline by at least 68 lakh , nearly 9% compared with the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with the final electoral roll after the special intensive revision (SIR) scheduled for publication on February 28, according to Election Commission (EC) sources, TOI reported.

The draft SIR list, released on December 16, recorded around 7.1 crore electors after excluding slightly over 58 lakh ASD (absent, shifted, dead or duplicate) voters. EC sources indicated that nearly 10 lakh more names are likely to be removed before the final roll is issued.

A senior EC official said that around 1.5 crore voters were identified in the draft list with logical discrepancies or marked as unmapped and were required to attend in-person hearings. Among them, notices could not be served to 3.6 lakh electors as booth-level officers (BLOs) were unable to trace them.


“These 3.6 lakh electors will be excluded from the final roll. In addition, around 5.2 lakh voters who received hearing notices did not appear before Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) or Assistant EROs (AEROs) till 2 pm on Saturday. Their names will also be removed,” the official said.

Following document verification after the hearings, another 1.6 lakh names were marked “ineligible”. “As a result, the number of electors will decrease by at least 10.4 lakh in the final roll,” the official added.

During a meeting with the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, special roll observers and district magistrates on Friday, the poll panel highlighted instances where newspaper clippings, blank pages or invisible images were uploaded and verified in the system. “Around 15–20 such cases were shown to district magistrates and central observers through a presentation. All such cases will undergo scrutiny during the super-checking exercise. The number of ineligible electors may increase further,” another EC official said.

Between December 16 and January 19, the EC received around 7.4 lakh Form 6 and 6A applications — both online and offline — from individuals seeking enrolment as new voters. Additionally, 42,501 Form 7 applications were filed for deletion of names due to death or change of address, and over 3.4 lakh Form 8 applications were submitted for updates and minor corrections in EPIC details.

Officials said all pending forms will be processed before publication of the final electoral roll. As per the EC’s schedule, documents submitted during hearings must be scrutinised and verified by February 21, with disposal of cases also to be completed by that date. Rationalisation of polling stations is to be carried out by February 25, ahead of the final roll’s publication on February 28.

With inputs from TOI