The story so far:

What began as an exercise aimed at cleaning up electoral rolls, by removing duplicate, migrated, and deceased voters, and identifying “illegal immigrants”, has turned into a major controversy in West Bengal.

The Election Commission of India (ECI)’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has been conducted in 13 States and Union Territories so far. However, it is in West Bengal that terms such as ‘adjudication’, ‘logical discrepancies’ and ‘voter tribunals’ have cropped up. The SIR process has also led to a “trust deficit” between the ECI, a constitutional body, and the elected Trinamool Congress government, according to the Supreme Court.

How has the SIR impacted the electoral rolls of West Bengal?

The SIR began in West Bengal on November 4, 2025, with 7.66 crore voters on the list. The draft rolls published on December 16 showed that over 63 lakh names had been deleted, bringing down the number of voters to around 7 crore. The deleted names were marked under the ASDD (absent, shifted, dead, and duplicate) category. However, of the 7 crore in the draft list, 30 lakh names were categorised as “unmapped voters” (with no link to the last SIR conducted in 2002), and 1.20 crore names had logical discrepancies.

What is the logical discrepancy category? What was the result of this exercise?

Voters under the logical discrepancy category were checked against a highly contentious five-point list even if they were mapped to the 2002 SIR list. Under a new AI algorithm, the ECI identified five types of discrepancies: (a) spelling differences in names between the 2002 and 2025 rolls; (b) cases where more than six voters linked themselves to a single ancestor; (c) age gaps between a voter and their parent falling beyond the 15-45 year range; (d) cases where the difference between the grandparents’ age and the voters’ age was less than 40 years; and (e) instances where the voters’ gender did not align with the name provided.

Editorial | On SIR and elections

After the ECI hearings, about 60 lakh of the 1.5 crore cases remained disputed, with Electoral Registration Officers and micro-observers appointed by the Election Commission of India unable to agree on their eligibility. This process resulted in over 60 lakh names falling into the ‘under adjudication’ category. They were excluded from voting pending verification.

What happened to voters placed in the ‘under adjudication’ category?

The Supreme Court in March took the “extraordinary” decision to involve the judiciary in the SIR process, saying the persistent “trust deficit” between the Mamata Banerjee government and the ECI had led to a “stalemate”, with time running out.

A three-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant requested the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court to deploy a force of serving and retired judicial officers to take over the quasi-judicial task of Electoral Registration Officers/Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (EROs/AEROs). The CJI said the rolls published on February 28 would not be treated as the final ones and those cleared in the adjudication would be added in subsequent supplementary lists. Thus, nearly 700 judicial officers from West Bengal, as well as neighbouring Odisha and Jharkhand, heard over 60 lakh cases that were “under adjudication”

How many names did the judicial officers clear? What is the status of those whose names did not make it?

The judicial officers struck down 27 lakh of the 60 lakh names. Those whose names the ECI has not cleared can now approach the 19 special tribunals it set up. However, with the ECI freezing electoral rolls for the upcoming elections, these people are unlikely to get to vote in the upcoming Assembly polls even if their names are cleared by the tribunals. A window of hope remains in the April 13 hearing in the Supreme Court, however.

So far, the total number of names deleted from the pre-SIR 2025 list is 90.8 lakh. The number of eligible voters in Bengal is 6.77 crore.

What has been the political fallout?

While the BJP, the main Opposition in the State, has strongly backed the process, the Trinamool has questioned the timing and scale of the process. Initially, the party had protested against the short timeline for the exercise, arguing it would lead to errors. However, since the process began, the SIR has become the main electoral plank in the Assembly polls, with the Trinamool accusing the ECI of playing the BJP’s game and trying to disenfranchise people who are loyal voters of the BJP. The Trinamool has repeatedly approached the ECI as well as the Supreme Court, with Ms. Banerjee herself appearing before the apex court to argue her case.

What are the other issues flagged by civil society and Opposition?

Civil society activists such as Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan have attacked the Bengal SIR accusing the ECI of “deliberately” targeting Muslim voters. At a press conference in Delhi, My. Yadav said, “It is not revision, it is rewriting.” He gave the example of Nandigram, where he said 25% of the voters are Muslim. “95% of deletions here were Muslim voters,” he noted. The maximum number of voters has been deleted from Murshidabad, Malda, and Uttar Dinajpur districts, which are predominantly Muslim in composition. He also said women have been targeted, especially in Matua-dominated areas.