DEO Alipurduar handed over the hard copies of the voter lists to the representatives of the recognized political parties at Alipurduar district, West Bengal today. (Image/ X)

KOLKATA: The Election Commission (EC) has begun publishing the updated electoral rolls in West Bengal following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), with early figures from Bankura district showing that around 1.18 lakh names have been deleted since the exercise began.Hard copies of the revised rolls were displayed on Saturday in districts including Bankura and Cooch Behar. However, as of the last reports received, the lists were yet to be made available online on the designated EC portals and mobile application.Live Updates:

Bankura sees net drop in voters

In Bankura, where the electorate stood at 30,33,830 when the SIR exercise commenced on November 4 last year, the number fell to 29,01,009 in the draft rolls published on December 16.Following hearings and scrutiny in the next phase, around 4,000 additional names were deleted. A few thousand fresh applications under Form 6 — meant for the inclusion of new voters — were approved.As a result, the final electoral roll in Bankura, a district where both the BJP and the Trinamool Congress are seen as politically competitive, now stands at approximately 29,15,000. This reflects a net deletion of around 1.18 lakh names since the start of the SIR, a senior district official said.Election Commission officials said the deletions were primarily due to death, migration, duplication and untraceability, while additions were processed after due verification.Reports from other districts are still awaited.

Statewide revision underway

The publication of the rolls is being carried out in phases across districts. Supplementary lists are expected as adjudication of pending cases continues.According to officials, the publication classifies 7.08 crore electors — whose names appeared in the draft rolls issued on December 16 — into three categories: “approved”, “deleted” and “under adjudication/under consideration”.Commission sources indicated that in parts of north Kolkata, nearly 17,000 names were found missing from the approved rolls, prompting political reactions from rival parties.The draft rolls published on December 16 had already shown the state’s electorate shrinking from 7.66 crore — based on names appearing in the rolls till August 2025 — to 7.08 crore. More than 58 lakh names were deleted during the first phase of scrutiny.The SIR process, the first such statewide revision since 2002, began on November 4 last year with the distribution of enumeration forms. The commission took 116 days to provisionally complete the exercise and publish what officials described as a “final but dynamic” list, as adjudication in several cases remains underway.The second phase involved hearings for 1.67 crore electors — 1.36 crore flagged for “logical discrepancies” and 31 lakh lacking proper mapping.Around 60 lakh voters remain under adjudication, meaning their inclusion or exclusion will be decided through supplementary rolls to be issued in phases.

Public response

Long queues were seen outside district election offices and cyber cafes across the state, as voters sought to check whether their names appeared in the updated rolls.In districts such as Bankura, North 24 Parganas and parts of Kolkata, hard copies were displayed on notice boards, drawing steady streams of residents. Many were seen scanning printed sheets, taking photographs on their mobile phones or seeking assistance from officials to locate their entries.At several district magistrate and sub-divisional offices, voters waited in long queues to verify whether their names were listed as “approved”, “deleted” or “under adjudication”.With the updated rolls not yet fully accessible online, cyber cafes reported a surge in footfall. In many neighbourhoods, small computer centres saw people lining up with voter ID cards and enumeration slips in hand — reflecting both public anxiety and the political stakes ahead of the assembly elections scheduled for April.