People wait in a queue during a hearing in a special intensive revision of electoral rolls in the center of Kolkata. File | Photo credit: PTI
According to sources in the Central Election Office, 32 lakh voters out of 60 lakh voters have been decided in West Bengal till Wednesday. Of the 32 million names, at least 40% (about 13 million) have been deleted from the electoral rolls, the sources added.
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About 28 million voters are still waiting for a decision.
The Electoral Commission published the first supplementary list at midnight on March 23, containing 10,000 names.
EC officials on Wednesday did not officially share any details on the number of deletions nearly 40 hours after the first list was published.
At least 60 million people across the state were arraigned, with 700 court officials working to clear the backlog.
While polling station and booth data is available online, voters complain that the lists have not been displayed on paper in any government offices, leaving those without digital access to search for information. The names on the lists must be verified individually after logging in to the electoral commission’s website.
Voters whose names have been struck off can appeal to 19 tribunals set up across districts in the state. These tribunals, led by former judges, will reconsider their pleas.
According to sources, the EC officials have sought permission from the Calcutta High Court to publish the supplementary lists every day instead of publishing them every Friday.
Uncertainty emerges
At least 522 voters were convicted in Silampur 1 gram panchayat area of Sujapur constituency in Malda district where people alleged that 427 names were deleted. “We have lived here for generations. My ancestors were born here. We are citizens here. What are we going to do now,” said the 70-year-old man, whose name was removed from the list.
Residents alleged that large-scale erasures took place despite submitting documents during the Special Intensive Review (SIR) process.
Trinamool Congress candidate from Sujapur Sabina Yasmin condemned the deletion while BJP candidate Abhiraj Chaudhary said he would take up the matter with the administration.
A similar incident of 340 deletions out of 358 non-compliance cases was reported from Basirhat area of North 24 Parganas district, booth level officer Mohammad Shaiful Alam said.
Protests broke out in the area with residents demanding justice and clamoring for the unauthorized deletion of names from the electoral rolls.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has said that women voters were particularly targeted in the SIR process and their names were deleted en masse.
“In a shameful display of misogyny, the BJP has arbitrarily deleted the names of thousands of Bengali women from electoral rolls simply because they adopted their husbands’ surnames after marriage,” Ms Banerjee said on Wednesday while campaigning in North Bengal.
As the confusion over the final voter list and supplementary lists intensifies, it is emerging as a major election issue ahead of the two-phase elections on April 23 and 29.
Error in decision making
On Tuesday (March 24, 2026) night, the EC’s website showed that a majority of voters across West Bengal were “under trial”. This led to concern among many locals as ruling Trinamool Congress leaders hit out at the EC, saying the BJP had turned “the entire electorate of Bengal into suspects”. However, around midnight, authorities at the CEO’s office said the problem was caused by a “technical glitch” and was immediately resolved.
Published – 25 March 2026 21:10 IST
