Bengal CEO reviews SIR readiness ahead of Delhi meet
Times of India | 7 September 2025
Kolkata: Bengal's chief election officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal held a meeting with officials in Kolkata on Saturday to discuss special intensive revision (SIR) preparedness ahead of the assembly polls scheduled for May 2026.
Agarwal is set to attend a meeting with chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in Delhi on Wednesday, along with CEOs from all states, to review SIR readiness.
To update the CEC on Bengal's status, another meeting has been planned on Monday with assistant district magistrates (ADMs), organising commissioners (OC) (election) and electoral registration officers (EROs). Officials are expected to give feedback on existing voters, number of booths, enhanced booths after rationalisation and data from the 2002 SIR for their respective districts and assemblies.
At Saturday's meeting, the issue of increasing number of applications for inclusion in voter rolls in some border districts was discussed. The highest surge has been reported from Murhsidabad, Cooch Behar, North Dinajpur, South and North 24 Parganas, Malda and Nadia.
An official said between June 1 and Aug 7, approximately 10 lakh applications were received for name inclusion, of which 6 lakh were accepted. The 40% rejections were mainly due to use of fake documents, prompting officials to exercise extra caution for verification.
Murshidabad recorded the highest rejection rate at 56.4%, followed by Cooch Behar, South 24 Parganas and North Dinajpur, all exceeding 44%.
Officials also discussed the processing of Form 6 for inclusion of new voters and Form 7 for objecting to name inclusion in electoral rolls or seeking deletion due to death or relocation. It was stressed that voters whose names have been deleted should have the opportunity to appeal, maintaining transparency of the electoral rolls.
The meeting revealed that in 95% of booths, booth level officers (BLOs) have been appointed, and EROs present for each constituency. The appointment of assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) is nearing completion. Both EROs and AEROs will play a crucial role in the SIR exercise.
Bengal has approximately 7.6 crore voters and over 80,000 booths. Following the EC mandate of 1,200 voters per booth, the state will have around 94,000 booths.