Bengal SIR 1st phase almost over: 28L-30L voters remain unmapped, may face EC hearing
Times of India | 7 December 2025
KOLKATA: The pre-hearing phase of Bengal's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll is nearing completion with nearly 100% of 7.6 crore voters' data having already been digitised. But between 28 and 30 lakh voters will, in all probability, have to attend poll officials' hearings if they want to stay on the roll as they remain unmapped (data not matching with the 2002 roll).
All these unmapped voters will get notices to appear for in-person hearings and will have to produce the 13 SIR documents that the Election Commission has approved for Bengal. The hearings will be held between Dec 16 and Feb 7 next year before the publication of the final electoral roll on Feb 14.
Besides this number, till Saturday afternoon, 54.6 lakh voters remained untraceable or were dead or were duplicate voters. These names would be deleted from the Bengal SIR draft list that would be published on Dec 16, officials said. The EC's deadline to complete this phase of SIR ends on Thursday.
"A little over 7% (54.6 lakh) of the 99.4% digitised enumeration forms are now 'uncollectible' and these names will not be included in the draft SIR roll to be published next week," a senior EC official said. But voters can challenge and file fresh enrolment applications under Form 6 if they want to challenge this. Around 23.7 lakh voters have died, 19 lakh have shifted elsewhere, 10.1 lakh are untraceable and 1.2 lakh are duplicate voters.
The EC will also publish a separate list of voters who have collected enumeration forms but not yet returned them to booth-level officers. These names (around 21,000), too, will not be included in the draft SIR roll.