Almost 50% of Over-100-Year-Old Voters in Bengal Electoral List Found Dead: ECI’s Initial Findings

Kolkata — Nearly half of the voters in West Bengal who are 100 years or older and still listed on the state’s electoral rolls have been found to be deceased, according to initial findings by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

An official from the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO)’s office said the exact number of deceased centenarian voters will only be confirmed after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls is completed.

According to the ECI’s latest data, around 13,000 voters in West Bengal are aged 100 or above on paper.

The ECI has instructed the state CEO to finish all preparations for the SIR, including printing enumeration forms by October 15, to ensure the process begins on time.

“During its recent review visit to West Bengal, the central ECI team focused particularly on removing names of deceased and duplicate voters from the rolls. Most likely, the process will start with identifying and deleting the names of deceased centenarian voters,” the official said.

He explained that duplicate voters fall into two main categories:

1. Those who have shifted residences within West Bengal, but whose names remain on both their old and new constituency lists.

   • In such cases, the voter’s name on the old address will be deleted.

2. Those who migrated to other states and registered as voters there, while their names continue to appear in West Bengal’s rolls.

The upcoming SIR exercise is being met with strong resistance from the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), which alleges that it could lead to targeted deletions.

Last week, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee warned that she would not tolerate the removal of names belonging to voters of “a particular religion.”

A day later, TMC MP Partha Bhowmik cautioned that the state would “be on the boil” if even a single genuine voter was deleted from the rolls.

On Saturday, TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh escalated the rhetoric, threatening to mobilize a one-lakh-strong protest in Delhi if the name of “even one legitimate voter” is struck off.

With inputs from IANS