A shocking audit in West Bengal has exposed potential voter list manipulation, prompting the Chief Electoral Officer to order a probe into fraudulent voter registrations over the past year. A memo revealed that two Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) allegedly accepted numerous Form 6 applications—used for new voter registration—from fictitious voters, bypassing mandatory verification by Booth Level Officers. The irregularities surfaced during a sample review of less than 1% of submitted forms, which also found repeated use of similar documents for multiple fake applications and unauthorized access granted to casual Data Entry Operators on the ERO Net system.

The Chief Electoral Officer directed district officials to form senior officer teams to investigate all Form 6 disposals from the past year, with a detailed report due by August 14. The directive bans contractual or casual data entry operators from handling Forms 6, 7, or 8 or any ERO Net duties. An internal probe against the two implicated EROs is underway, highlighting a major breach in electoral protocol.

The scandal emerges amid a broader controversy over voter list revisions in Bihar, now before the Supreme Court, with opposition parties alleging Election Commission processes could disenfranchise voters to favor the BJP. With West Bengal’s assembly elections looming next year, where the BJP aims to unseat Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, the findings intensify scrutiny on electoral integrity and fuel political tensions in the state.

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