Kolkata
Almost half of the cases kept under adjudication after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal have now been settled, Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal said on Monday (March 23, 2026).
But, the CEO did not specify how many of those cases were included in or excluded from the final voter list.
Before the list was published, Mr. Agarwal said that the whole process is centralised and State officials do not have any additional information.
“At least 29 lakhs cases have been disposed of till now (March 23 evening). That is what we can see on our dashboard. We do not have any information on how many have been included or how many left out,” the CEO said. Around 31 lakh cases are still pending.
Political concern
The development has drawn sharp reactions from political parties. Trinamool Congress spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said, “No legal and genuine voter should be left out. If the Election Commission anticipates that the supplementary voter list will cause law and order issues in the State, then they already know that people will be removed from the list without due cause.”
Mr. Ghosh further added that the poll panel has transferred several top police and administrative officials across the State after the election schedules were declared, and now, in case of any unforeseen situation, the EC would be responsible.
“In the name of SIR, what is happening in Bengal may cause a huge amount of disenfranchisement of voters,” veteran Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said.
Appeals mechanism
The West Bengal CEO has asked the State Chief Secretary to provide space where appellant tribunals can conduct their work and listen to people’s appeals.
People who are excluded from the final voter list even after the hearing may appeal to the tribunal headed by former judges. The judges will hear their cases and decide if they may be included in the list or not.
Under adjudication
After months of the SIR process, the final voter list of West Bengal was published on February 28, containing 6.46 crore names, while 60 lakh names were kept under adjudication. The cases remained pending for 23 days even as political parties traded barbs.
Around 700 judges from West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Odisha have been hearing the cases for the past 3 weeks.
Of the 1.6 crore people called for hearings, 1.3 crore were under the “logical discrepancy” category, and 32 lakhs were classified as “unmapped” voters.
Earlier, when the draft voter list was published, 58 lakh people were removed under categories like deceased, absent, permanently shifted and duplicate. Around 5.5 lakh more were deleted when the final list was published.
West Bengal will go to polls in two phases on April 23 and 29. The counting will be held on May 4.