West Bengal Electoral Rolls Show 26 Lakh Voters Missing From Old Records
EC uncovers massive mismatch as digitisation exposes decades-old gaps
The Election Commission has flagged a staggering discrepancy in West Bengal’s electoral rolls, revealing that approximately 26 lakh voters currently enrolled cannot be traced back to the voter lists compiled during the last nationwide Special Intensive Revision (SIR) conducted between 2002 and 2006, according to senior officials monitoring the ongoing verification drive.
This startling figure emerged during the meticulous digitisation and mapping phase of the current SIR exercise, where more than six crore enumeration forms collected across the state have already been converted into digital records as of Wednesday afternoon. When these freshly digitised entries were cross-referenced with the baseline data from the 2002-2006 revision cycle, around 26 lakh names in the present rolls failed to find any corresponding match, raising questions about their historical continuity.
Election Commission sources cautioned that the 26 lakh figure remains provisional and is expected to rise further as digitisation of the remaining forms progresses in coming weeks. Unlike previous revisions, this year’s mapping exercise has been significantly expanded to include voter lists from all other states, enabling authorities to track inter-state migration patterns and verify whether individuals enrolled in West Bengal today were previously registered elsewhere during the earlier nationwide exercise.
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Officials have stressed that the mapping process is purely a technical reconciliation tool and does not automatically translate into deletion. Every flagged case will now undergo rigorous field-level verification by Booth Level Officers, who will physically visit addresses, examine supporting documents, and conduct hearings before any name is removed, thereby ensuring that genuine voters are fully protected under established procedural safeguards.
The development has intensified scrutiny over the integrity of West Bengal’s electoral rolls ahead of future polls, with the Election Commission deploying enhanced technological and human resources to eliminate duplicate, permanently shifted, or deceased entries while maintaining transparency and fairness throughout one of the most exhaustive voter list purification drives the state has witnessed in decades.
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