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New Delhi: In what is being seen as a precursor to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal, the Election Commission (EC) on Monday published the state's last SIR data from 2002. The data, covering 109 assembly segments across 11 districts, was released under the heading: "Electoral Roll of SIR 2002, (remaining ACs will be uploaded soon)".
The districts whose data have been uploaded include Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling, North & South Dinajpur, Malda, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, Midnapore, and Bankura.
While there has been no formal announcement from either the EC or the Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), the move is widely viewed as the first step toward a fresh SIR exercise in the state. The EC had earlier said that -- through a notification -- after Bihar, SIR would be rolled out nationwide. Since Bihar goes to polls later this year, the process began there first. Bengal is scheduled to go to assembly polls in 2026.
The last SIR in Bengal took place in 2002, and the state had 4.7 crore voters in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. The latest special summary revision (SSR) conducted in January-February 2025 estimated Bengal's voter count at 7.6 crore.
"This is an ongoing process. The electoral data of the remaining districts will be published on Tuesday, or at most in a couple of days," a senior EC official was quoted as saying by The Times of India. The publication of the 2002 SIR data also coincides with the state-wide training of booth-level officers (BLOs) and their supervisors. The exercise is expected to be completed this week.
Meanwhile, the Bengal CEO has also sought clarifications from Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) of Moyna (East Midnapore), Baruipur (South 24 Parganas), and Rajarhat (North 24 Parganas) over complaints of false voters in the electoral rolls, amid allegations of influx of Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals. The EC found the initial responses unsatisfactory and summoned the AROs again on Tuesday for further clarifications.
While EC officials have called this a routine exercise, they confirmed that more AROs will be summoned this week for similar clarifications. "Complaints from many more assembly segments have been received. The effort is to weed out false voters," the official added.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has repeatedly expressed concern that the SIR process could disenfranchise legitimate voters, including those who voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The TMC, member of the opposition INDIA bloc, has alleged that the EC is attempting to replicate citizenship scrutiny akin to Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, through the backdoor.
The BJP, main opposition party in Bengal, has backed the SIR exercise, alleging that lakhs of Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators have made their way into Bengal's electoral rolls.
The SIR process has also triggered political uproar in not only Bihar but nationwide. The INDIA bloc has staged repeated protests in Parliament. The matter is currently being heard in the Supreme Court, which has thus far refused to halt the Bihar SIR.
The batch of petitions includes one by TMC MP Mahua Moitra, who in her Special Leave Petition (SLP) expressed fears that the SIR will be extended to Bengal from August 2025, citing alleged instructions already issued to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). The SC is scheduled to continue hearing the case on Tuesday.
