West Bengal SIR enters final stage as hearings wrap up and docs uploaded
West Bengal SIR enters final stage as hearings wrap up and docs uploaded
West Bengal's Special Intensive Revision moves into its final phase, with millions of voters under scrutiny as hearings end and document verification proceeds.
West Bengal's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has moved into its final decision-making phase, with hearings and uploading of documents wrapping up across the poll-bound state. Nearly 15.2 million voters, whose names could not be mapped to the 2002 electoral roll or who have logical discrepancies, were called for hearings starting December 17, signaling a decisive push to clean up the roll ahead of the publication of the final list on February 28.
Officials said the electoral registration officers (EROs) and additional electoral registration officers (AEROs) will now scrutinise the submitted documents. Roll observers and micro-observers will provide remarks before the final electoral roll is published, a process described as the last step in a meticulous verification cycle. The state has already deleted about 5.8 million names from the draft roll—those of absent voters, permanently shifted voters, the dead, or duplicates—and the current round of hearings targets those remaining with unresolved entries.
The scale of the exercise remains immense: around five million voters’ documents are still under verification, and the total number of names likely to be deleted is expected to rise beyond the already trimmed list. In some areas, hearings concluded last week, but in four to five places they extended into the weekend to complete the process. On balance, the process has seen a mix of turnout and non-turnout; officials noted that roughly 498,000 voters did not attend hearings, while about 163,000 were flagged as ineligible.
The revision has also touched political nerves, with the chief minister sending at least six letters to the Election Commission urging careful handling of the process to avoid excluding genuine voters and to prevent inclusion of ineligible names. Once remarks from roll observers and micro-observers are incorporated, the final roll is expected to be released on February 28, with continuous updates possible as deaths and other changes occur. This stage marks a concerted effort to strengthen the integrity of the voter list ahead of the elections.
