West Bengal election officials have begun a state-wide drive to identify eligible voters whose names were deleted during the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and help them apply for re-enrolment, following a directive from the Election Commission of India.
District election officers will coordinate door-to-door visits by booth-level officers (BLOs), who will verify the status of affected electors and assist eligible applicants in submitting Form 6, the application used to seek inclusion in electoral rolls. Special enrolment camps are also being organised across the state, including for first-time voters.
The initiative was announced by the office of West Bengal’s chief electoral officer, Neelam Meena. A statement signed by Additional Chief Electoral Officer Arindam Niyogi said the exercise was intended to ensure that no eligible voter was excluded from the electoral roll. It asked people with complaints to contact the relevant BLO, assistant electoral registration officer, electoral registration officer or district election officer.
The Election Commission has directed district authorities to identify electors whose names appeared in the pre-SIR voter list but are missing from the current rolls. The exercise will use the list of electors categorised as absent, shifted, dead or deleted, known as the ASDD list. The list has been made available on the website of the state chief electoral officer and through links on the websites of district election officers.
Eligible people who find that their names are missing can submit Form 6 online or approach their local BLO for assistance, officials said. The process will run alongside regular enrolment, with district-level authorities responsible for monitoring applications and processing them under electoral rules.
The campaign follows a large-scale revision exercise that has left tens of lakhs of names subject to scrutiny. The draft revision identified more than 58 lakh electors in the ASDD categories, while over 60 lakh names were subsequently referred for adjudication. Around 27 lakh names were deleted after the adjudication process, according to reports carried by the source. Appellate tribunals received more than 22 lakh appeals seeking reinstatement.
Election officials have also been asked to coordinate with representatives of recognised political parties during the verification process. Their involvement is intended to assist in identifying eligible electors who may have been left out of the current rolls, while district authorities remain responsible for the formal processing of applications.
The state chief electoral officer’s office has clarified that cases rejected by judicial officers, as well as appeals pending before appellate tribunals, cannot be decided through this enrolment drive by executive election authorities. Those matters will continue to be handled through the applicable judicial mechanism. For other eligible applicants whose names are missing, the next steps are verification by election officials and submission of Form 6 through the prescribed process.
