Names of Voters Not Matching 2002 Electoral Roll Across Kolkata, Says CEO Office

Kolkata- A significant number of voters in Kolkata and surrounding districts have been found to have names that do not match the 2002 voter list, according to sources in the office of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal.

The discrepancy has surfaced during the ongoing digitisation of enumeration forms collected as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

As of Wednesday afternoon, officials identified nearly 26 lakh voters whose names or parents’ names do not correspond with the 2002 voter list.

Several Assembly constituencies — including Kolkata Port, Kasba, Sonarpur (Dakshin and Uttar), Behala (Purba and Paschim), Rajarhat-New Town, and Rajarhat-Gopalpur — have each recorded over 30,000 such cases. These constituencies fall within Kolkata and the adjoining North and South 24 Parganas districts.

High mismatch numbers have also been reported from West Burdwan, along with Nadia and Murshidabad — both districts sharing borders with Bangladesh.

West Bengal currently has 7,66,37,529 registered electors as per the roll dated October 27. Digitisation work for 5 crore enumeration forms, collected by Booth Level Officers (BLOs), has already been completed.

Officials said the full picture will become clear on December 9, when the draft electoral roll is scheduled for publication.

Verification Rules Under SIR

According to SIR guidelines:

• Voters whose names or their parents’ names appear in the 2002 electoral roll will be treated as automatically valid.

• Those whose names do not match must submit one of 11 identity documents approved by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

• Although the Supreme Court has allowed Aadhaar as the 12th document, the ECI requires individuals providing Aadhaar to submit one additional document from the original list of 11.

The SIR process in West Bengal began on November 4 and will continue until March next year. The last such revision in the state took place in 2002.

With inputs from IANS