SIR in Bengal: In a new set of instructions, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked District Election Officers (DEOs) in West Bengal not to call for hearing those voters who have been marked as ‘unmapped’. The pause only applies to voters who were marked as not found by the EC’s central software but were found on hard copies of the 2002 rolls.
The instructions came amid a barrage of criticism leveled at the electoral body in West Bengal, where voting was taking place. Special intensive revision list of voters.
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A letter dated December 27 from Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO) West Bengal to all DEOs said that though hearing notices could be generated from the system for such cases, such voters should not be called for hearing or hearing notices, so the generated notices in such cases need not be delivered and instead should be kept with the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO)/Assistant Registrar (AERO Electoral Officer Electoral Officer).
Why the sudden pause?
What is the cause of the pause?
Officials explained that when electoral officials working on the ground were checking hard copies of the 2002 records, they noticed that voters or their children were present who were marked as “unmapped” in the EC software. The pause does not apply to “unmapped” cases marked by the ERO after verification on the ground.
The current term of the 294-member West Bengal Assembly is till the first week of May 2026.
SIR in Bengal: Draft list published on 16 December
The SIR instructions dated October 27 asked voters to fill up forms and trace themselves or a family member to the electoral roll of the last intensive revision held in 2002 in West Bengal.
In principle, voters were required to be “attached” to the 2002 electoral roll, either through their own presence or the presence of a relative on that list, in order to remain voters in the future.
On 16 December, the Election Commission released West Bengal’s post-SIR draft electoral rolls, deleting the names of more than 58 million voters for various reasons, including death and migration, and redrawing voter profiles across districts and border belts ahead of the 2026 parliamentary polls.
The scale, scope and political geography of the wipeout affected several high-profile assembly seats and sharpened political fault lines, setting the stage for a contentious verification phase ahead of state elections less than six months away.
Who are unregistered voters?
In addition to the deleted voters, the polling panel’s software also marked an additional 32 million voters who were not found on the 2002 rolls as “unmapped.” These “unmapped” voters, according to centrally generated notices, had to prove their eligibility by appearing in person to remain voters.
Hearings for these “unmapped” voters began in West Bengal on December 27.
The pause does not apply to “unmapped” cases marked by the ERO after verification on the ground.
However, the EC letter quoted by the media explains that the 2002 Electoral Roll extract can be sent to the concerned DEO for verification as directed by the EC and after verification by the DEO, the ERO or AERO can “call and upload the document for disposal of cases”.
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On 27 December, the Trinamool Congress submitted a memorandum opposing the “system generated” notifications.
On the same day, the Additional Chief Executive of Bengal asked all district election officers to stop summoning voters for a hearing if their names were marked as “unmapped” in the 2002 lists. This was despite the system generating notices for the SIR.
Marked “unmapped” on 2002 PDF
Many voters were marked as “unmapped” because the PDF file of the 2002 voter list was not fully converted to CSV or plain text format, the letter said.
As a result, the BLO application – intended for use by the EC’s Booth Level Officers – could not get links for a number of voters, even though they or their children could be traced on the hard copy of the 2002 lists verified by the DEO and published on the CEO’s website.
Bengal SIR
According to official data released on December 16, 58,20,898 names were dropped from nominations in West Bengal, reducing the number of voters in the state from 7.66 million to 7.08 million after the conduct of Parliament. Special intensive revision (SIR) exercises from 4 November to 11 December.
A detailed breakdown released earlier showed that 24,16,852 voters were listed as dead, 19,88,076 as permanently displaced and 12,20,038 as missing or untraceable.
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Another 1.38 million voters were identified as duplicates, while 1,83,328 names were marked as so-called “ghost” voters. More than 57,000 names were removed as part of other irregularities found during the enumeration.
