A Booth Level Officer (BLO) and Booth Level Agents (BLA) interact with residents during the distribution of house-to-house enumeration (EF) forms for the second phase of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bijoygarh, Kolkata. File | Photo credit: ANI
As the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls in West Bengal gathers momentum, more than 7,000 polling stations have come under the scrutiny of the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, where between zero and ten “uncollectable” enumeration forms have been recorded, indicating negligible voter deaths, duplication, relocation or absence.
Around 2,208 polling stations saw 100% collection and digitization of enumeration forms, with no forms marked as uncollectable due to voter death or other reasons. In nearly 4,764 booths where booth level officers (BLOs) have completed collection and digitization of all enumeration forms, only a small number of forms — between one and 10 — have been recorded as uncollectable.
At the start of the SIR exercise in West Bengal, there were 80,661 polling stations, each catering to approximately 900 to 1,000 voters. According to sources in the director general’s office, only one enumeration form was uncollectable in 582 booths. In 420 cabins only two forms each, in 372 cabins only three forms each and in 374 cabins only four forms each.
All these booths with zero or negligible dead/duplicate/shifted/absentee voters have drawn scrutiny from the Election Commission of India. On Monday (December 1, 2025), West Bengal Chief Executive Manoj Kumar Agarwal sought a report from district election officials for booths where no ineligible or untraceable voters were found. These include districts like South 24 Parganas with more than 700 such booths, Purulia with 228 such booths, Murshidabad with 226 booths and Malda with 216 booths, according to sources in the CEO’s office.
In addition, Mr. Agarwal directed all election officials conducting the SIR enumeration phase across districts to count deaths from other available government records and booth-level officials to correct any errors in digital records through the BLO application.
The development assumes significance with the Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Monday (Dec 1), gross irregularities in the digitization of filled enumeration forms by state government officials and asked for an audit of around 1.25 lakh entries made between November 26 and 28 during the ongoing SIR enumeration phase.
As of December 2, 99.92% voters in West Bengal have received their enumeration forms and 97.34% of the forms have been digitized, according to sources in the CEO’s office. Before the start of SIR, 7.66 lakh voters were mentioned in the state electoral roll.
Sources also said that till date about 45 thousand forms remained uncollectable due to deaths, duplications, relocation or absence of voters. Of these, nearly 22.2 million voters were identified as dead, 6.4 million voters as untraceable, 16.22 million voters as shifted and roughly 1 million voters as bogus or duplicate voters based on the collection and digitization of census forms in the state.
Published – 02 Dec 2025 21:23 IST
