ECI deletes 59 lakh voters in Bengal; flags serious discrepancies in electoral rolls

KOLKATA: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Friday revealed about 59 lakh deletions of dead, duplicate, permanently shifted, and absent voters in West Bengal.Besides the deletion of such a massive number of voters, the ECI has also found some serious discrepancies after analysing data from enumeration forms (EFs) in the state.In Bengal, 11 December was the last day for submitting EFs under the SIR exercise.The date released by the national poll panel today showed wide variations across assembly segments, starting from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s constituency, Bhawanipore, to Nandigram in East Midnapore, where Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari had contested with a BJP ticket against Mamata in the last assembly polls in 2021.TNIE in its earlier reports had revealed the variations in connection with deletions of voters in many assembly constituencies in Kolkata, South 24 Parganas, and North 24 Parganas districts.Chowringhee Assembly constituency in Kolkata has recorded the highest number of uncollectable enumeration forms (EFs) in West Bengal at 74,505, while Jorasanko comes next with 67,578.The abnormally high number of such forms in constituencies such as Chowringhee, Jorasanko, Kolkata Port, Ballygunj, and Bhawanipore, where the Chief Minister had contested in the 2021 bypoll and won, has raised eyebrows among Commission officials.The prime reasons for enumeration forms being deemed uncollectable are categorised as ASDD (absent, shifted, dead, and duplicate), indicating individuals who are dead, permanently shifted to a different location or constituency, untraceable or absent, and duplicates who are found to be enrolled in multiple polling stations or have fake entries.



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