More than 50 lakh voters in West Bengal to be deleted from the draft electoral roll under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists conducted by the Election Commission of India. According to the latest data compiled during the verification process, a total of 52,99,663 names have been marked for removal.
Among these, the highest number — over 23,48,000 — are voters identified as deceased. Another 18,55,000 names have been classified as permanently shifted, indicating that these individuals no longer reside at the addresses registered with the electoral authorities.
Around 9,42,000 voters are listed as “missing,” meaning enumeration forms were issued but never returned, making their status unverifiable. About 1,22,000 entries have been tagged as duplicate or fake voters. Additionally, approximately 31,800 names fall into an “others” category, which includes rejected forms or cases where verification could not be completed due to miscellaneous reasons.
Officials emphasise that these numbers are not final. Many voters currently categorised as “missing” may still be verified before the final roll is published. The draft voter list is scheduled to be released on 16 December, after which the claims and objections process will determine the final deletions and additions.
The SIR exercise represents one of the most extensive clean-up operations of West Bengal’s voter list in recent years, aiming to eliminate invalid, outdated, or unverified entries and update the electoral roll ahead of upcoming elections.