Tribunals clear 1,468 voters, delete six ahead of Bengal final phase polls
Telegraph | 29 April 2026
The appellate tribunals approved the inclusion of 1,468 voters in the electoral rolls and struck off six names on Monday night.
These 1,468 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the second and final phase of elections on Wednesday.
“The Supreme Court had ordered that those whose names were deleted after adjudication could appeal to appellate tribunals for inclusion, and if they were found eligible by the tribunals, they should be included in the electoral rolls by publishing supplementary lists on April 27 for the second phase of polls on April 29. Accordingly, the supplementary lists were published and a total of 1,468 voters were added to the rolls,” said a senior poll panel official.
Ahead of the first phase of polls held on April 23, 139 voters whose names were cleared by the tribunals were added to the rolls.
Although the EC published the names of the 1,468 voters, it has not revealed how many cases were disposed of by the tribunals before the second-phase polls.
Around 60.06 lakh voters in Bengal were put under a category called “under adjudication” after the EC found discrepancies in their enumeration forms. A total of 702 judicial officers adjudicated these cases and found more than 27 lakh ineligible.
Voters deemed ineligible by the judicial officers could appeal before the 19 tribunals set up by Calcutta High Court.
Around 32 lakh persons — voters found ineligible by judicial officials and those whose names were deleted in the preceding phases of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the poll rolls — appealed before the tribunals, along with objections filed by the BJP against the inclusion of some names.
TMC: Deletion 0.4%
Although the Election Commission did not reveal the total figure of cases disposed of by the tribunals, the Trinamool Congress claimed the number was 1,474, of which 1,468 names were cleared, a deletion percentage of merely 0.4.
Following the addition of these names to the electoral rolls, a Trinamool press release stated: "The numbers have spoken, and they have spoken with devastating precision. The Second Appellate Tribunal released its second roll last night, clearing 1,468 electors out of 1,474 verifications, with only 6 marked for deletion. A deletion rate of 0.4%. When a tribunal examining nearly 1,500 voters in forensic detail can only find 6 to delete, it does not just clear those voters. It indicts the entire SIR exercise."
The statement continued: "It validates with cold, documented arithmetic what AITC Chairperson Mamata Banerjee has been saying from the very beginning, that the 27 lakh voters targeted under the SIR exercise were not ghosts, not infiltrators, not illegal names on a roll. They were genuine electors, real people, real Bengalis, whose democratic rights were being systematically dismantled by an exercise designed not to clean the rolls but to clear the field. The tribunals have now confirmed their legitimacy. The appellate process has now confirmed their legitimacy. And yet, on April 29, these same voters, who were legit and real, will be turned away at the booth. Their names will not be on the roll. Their votes will not be counted. The ECI made sure it did not matter. That is a democracy being dismantled in plain sight."
A Trinamool veteran alleged that the entire SIR process was conducted to give an edge to the BJP.