Kolkata, Nov 13 The Election Commission will publish the draft electoral rolls for West Bengal on November 23, with the final voters’ list scheduled to be released on January 16, 2027, as part of a Special Summary Revision (SSR), a statement said on Friday.
The revision will be conducted with January 1, 2027, as the qualifying date, allowing those who turn 18 by then to enrol as voters, it said.
According to the schedule announced by the Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office, electors can submit claims and objections between November 23 and December 22. The disposal of applications will be completed by January 8.
Special campaign days will be held at designated polling stations across the state on November 28 and 29, and December 5, 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20 to facilitate public participation, the statement said.
Booth Level Officers (BLOs) will be available at polling stations on these days to assist voters with fresh enrolment, correction of particulars and submission of claims and objections.
Booth Level Agents (BLAs) of recognised political parties have also been asked to participate in the exercise.
The CEO’s office has urged eligible citizens, particularly young voters turning 18 by January 1, 2027, and those whose names may have been inadvertently omitted, to check their details in the draft rolls and apply for enrolment or corrections within the stipulated period.
The revision will also focus on improving the accuracy and uniformity of electoral records through standardisation of residential addresses, the statement said.
Voters’ addresses will have to include details such as house number, ward, street, locality, village or town, district, state and PIN code. Electors will be arranged according to house and floor numbers in the draft rolls to facilitate identification, it said.
Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have been directed to ensure that members of the same family living at a common address are not assigned to different polling stations, it said.
Wherever possible, residents of the same building, street or locality will also be grouped together in the same section of the electoral roll, the statement said.
The exercise will also involve verification and replacement of blurred, incorrect or poor-quality photographs, besides removal of duplicate entries and deletion of names of deceased and permanently shifted electors in accordance with prescribed procedures.
The CEO’s office said it had held a meeting with representatives of all recognised political parties on November 3 to brief them on the revision schedule and the latest instructions issued by the EC.
The SSR comes amid continuing controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which has triggered protests, with demonstrators demanding its withdrawal and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged wrongful exclusion of voters.
The SIR exercise has drawn criticism over the deletion of a large number of names from electoral rolls, with opponents alleging that it could disenfranchise eligible voters.
The EC, however, has defended the exercise, saying it is aimed at removing the names of deceased, duplicate and ineligible voters.
West Bengal, which went to Assembly polls in April, witnessed one of the largest electoral roll revisions, with nearly 91 lakh names deleted from its pre-revision electorate of 7.66 crore, accounting for around 12 per cent of the total.
Of these, around 27.16 lakh voters were removed following adjudication of their eligibility on grounds of “logical discrepancies”, triggering concerns over possible disenfranchisement.
The EC informed the Supreme Court that 22.21 lakh of these voters had appealed against their exclusion, while 93 per cent of the appeals decided by the tribunals had resulted in restoration of their names.
(PTI News)
