WB SIR: Poll body receives 3.5 lakh claims from voters for inclusion, deletion

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has received more than 3.5 lakh claims from voters for the inclusion and deletion of names after the draft electoral roll in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal was published on December 16, 2025, officials have said.

Political parties, including the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and rival Bharatiya Janata Party, have submitted eight forms in this regard.

“We received at least 3,51,812 claims for inclusion and deletion of names after the draft roll was published. While 3,13,034 of these were for inclusion of names (form 6), the remaining 38,778 were claims for deletion of names (form 7),” said a senior official of the poll panel in Kolkata.

The names of around 5.8 million dead, duplicate, absent and shifted voters were struck off from the draft electoral roll published on December 16, 2025. Around 3.2 million voters were found to be unmapped. While the ECI initially found around 16.7 million voters who had logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms, the number later dropped to around 9.4 million after scrutiny, and the removal of minor discrepancies such as errors in spellings.

“The claims and objections which we are receiving (forms 6 and 7) are primarily from voters whose names were not there in the 2025 electoral roll, fresh voters and those whose names were struck off from the draft roll (dead, shifted, absent and duplicate voters),” the official said.

The ECI has sent hearing notices to around seven million unmapped voters and those with logical discrepancies in connection with SIR in West Bengal till date, officials aware of the developments said.

The TMC has been attacking the poll panel over the alleged deletion of “genuine voters” and those who are being called for hearing over logical discrepancies. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already sent five letters to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, flagging multiple concerns.

In the latest letter which she sent on Monday, Banerjee alleged that digitisation of the 2002 SIR database using AI (artificial intelligence) tools have resulted in large scale mismatches. Many genuine voters have been categorized as logical discrepancies.

TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, while addressing a rally in Cooch Behar on Tuesday, paraded 10 persons on the dais alleging that they have been declared dead in the draft roll. Earlier on January 2, he paraded three persons on the dais at a rally in South 24 Parganas claiming that they have been declared dead and their names were struck off from the draft roll.

“We have received eight claims from political parties for inclusion of voters in the electoral roll. While three have come from the TMC, two from the CPI(M) and one each from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), BJP and All India Forward Bloc. Even though the political parties can facilitate the submission of such claims and objections through forms 6 and 7, ultimately the voter concerned has to fill up the form and submit it,” said the official quoted above.

Abhishek Banerjee, however, claimed that the EC said they never disclosed the names of deleted voters, as a result of which very few claims and objections have poured in.

“Names of more than 5 million genuine voters have been illegally deleted using AI. Women, who had to shift and change their surname after marriage, have been targeted. This list wasn’t made public. You may now ask: why there are so few claims and objections? I heard that an EC official in Kolkata has said that only three claims and objections have been submitted. Is it the truth? If you don’t make public the list of deleted voters, how will the people know? You are not accepting the claims and objections,” Mamata Banerjee, who is also the TMC supremo, said during a press conference at the state secretariat on Tuesday.

A senior poll panel official, however, said that the constituency-wise lists of absent, shifted, dead and duplicate (ASDD) voters were published and uploaded on the poll panel’s website in December 2025.

“The BLOs who collected the data from the ground, based on which names of voters were deleted, are all state government officers. Deleting names of genuine voters and showing them as dead could be a ploy to malign the SIR process. Abhishek Banerjee should also parade those BLOs on the ramp. The chief minister is telling all lies. The booth-wise and constituency-wise ASDD voters’ list was published around the same time the draft roll was published. How else would Abhishek Banerjee know the identity of dead voters?” said Shankar Ghosh, BJP legislator and the party’s chief whip in the state legislative assembly.