EC desperate to reduce logical discrepancy hearings
Times of India | 25 December 2025
Kolkata: The Election Commission is desperate to reduce ‘logical discrepancy' hearings and has identified 12-13 lakh cases with spelling mistakes in names of their fathers.
It has instructed BLOs to correct the spelling in the draft SIR roll to ensure that a voter does not receive a call to appear in a hearing. The instruction was issued to eliminate cases of minor mismatches due to typographical errors from the hearing process, EC officials said.
The commission identified approximately 1.4 crore voters whose enumeration forms were found to contain any one of seven types of logical discrepancies.
"Of these 1.4 crore voters, about 85 lakh were found with father name mismatch. Under the category of father name mismatch, cases that are result of spelling errors, we have asked BLOs to rectify those so that the respective voters do not have to appear in hearings. According to our estimates, we can easily eliminate 12-13 lakh voters from the hearing process for mismatch in father's name due to spelling errors," a senior EC official said.
According to norms, a voter's details mentioned in the electoral list as on Oct 27, 2025, must exactly match his/her details mentioned in the 2002 SIR roll of Bengal, and if any mismatch is found, the voter will be called for a hearing.
"The norms are very strict, and if those are followed, over 1.5 crore voters would be called for hearings, and then it would be a monumental task. Disposal of such a huge number of cases by Feb 7 is not so easy. So, the EC has given this instruction, aiming to reduce hearing load," another commission official elaborated.
The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, has also proposed to the EC that if any voter's middle name like Kumar, Chandra etc, which was mentioned in the 2002 SIR roll of Bengal but got deleted in the voters' list as on Oct 27, 2025, for any technological reason or vice-versa, the correction should be done at the back-end to make sure that the voter doesn't have to appear in a hearing, an official said.
GFX
Voters with any one of seven types of logical discrepancy | 1.4 crore (approx)
Father name mismatch | About 85 lakh
EC's step | BLOs to correct spelling of father's name
Benefit | 12-13 lakh voters with father name mismatch due to spelling errors will not have to appear in a hearing