Kolkata: Opposition parties, including the Left and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have long argued that the electoral rolls in Bengal have been structurally manipulated to benefit the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC). Sections of the TMC have meanwhile accused the Election Commission of bowing to external political pressure to manipulate the rolls especially now that the special intensive revision of lists is on.

The ECI, in the meantime, is signalling a massive cleanup of the state's electoral rolls, with estimates compiled till December 5 suggesting that the names of over 54.59 lakh people may be omitted from the upcoming draft list. This provisional figure includes over 23.71 lakh deceased voters, as well as those who are missing, untraceable, or have migrated from their registered addresses, with officials also saying that “1.26 lakh duplicate voters" have already been identified through a "new software" to detect demographically similar entries. 

An estimated 28-30 lakh voters will still have to appear before poll officials if they wish to remain on the rolls, as their records remain “unmapped” with the 2002 roll, the ECI says. The number of "uncollectable" enumeration forms in West Bengal stands at 7.1% of the total electorate. These are forms of absentee, shifted or dead voters. To put this in perspective, around 65 lakh or 8.2% of the total electorate were removed from the draft list in Bihar.

ECI sources, however, caution that these numbers are still evolving. The EC’s deadline for completing this phase of the SIR ends on Thursday.

For nearly a decade, the registered electorate has expanded at a rate that sharply contradicts Bengal’s natural demographic trends. While demographic models in 2004 aligned with the voter roll within a narrow 0.50% margin of error, this author's calculations show that that divergence has now swollen to more than 20%, or over 1.5 crore names. The ECI, which is responsible for annual updates, is now using the very inflation it previously allowed as the justification for this unprecedented verification exercise.

The verification drive is targeting specific data anomalies, particularly in polling booths showing unusually high form collection rates. To oversee this sensitive exercise, the ECI has appointed a Special Election Observer and 12 additional observers. The appointment of Subrata Gupta, a retired 1990-batch IAS officer, as Special Observer has sparked particular interest. Gupta was reportedly sidelined to relatively minor departments such as state horticulture and food processing, even as junior bureaucrats were given key portfolios, sparking controversy within the state bureaucracy. Interestingly, he served as the managing director of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) during the Left Front government’s land acquisition in Singur for the small car project and later headed Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation Ltd (KMRCL) where he allegedly faced non-cooperation from the Mamata Banerjee government – history that adds significant weight to his current role in scrutinising the state's electoral data.

Speaking exclusively to The Wire, Gupta described the initial reports of low numbers of 'uncollectable' forms in over 7,500 polling stations as “a matter of concern”. On December 1, the Bengal news space was swept with the news that in 2,208 booths there was not a single absentee, shifted or dead voter. Of these, 760 such booths were in the South 24-Parganas district alone. The numbers were 226 in Murshidabad, 216 in Malda, and 94 and 54 in Howrah and Hooghly respectively. Interestingly, South 24 Parganas, with the maximum polling stations without any “dead voter” is a stronghold of the ruling TMC. This scrutiny comes despite striking variations in the enumeration efforts across districts. The ECI has also highlighted a large cluster of 962 booths where only one or two forms are pending.

Far from treating such near-complete collection as a sign of exemplary efficiency, the ECI declared extra scrutiny for these booths, which constitute around 9% of total polling stations in the state. Gupta openly flagged the anomaly, saying, “All booths where there are between zero and 20 ‘uncollectable forms’ – meaning all or most of the enumeration forms have been filled in and returned – the BLOs’ data entries must be thoroughly checked for accuracy.”

The impact of this audit was instantaneous. The number of booths claiming zero absentee, shifted or dead voters plummeted from 2,208 on December 3 to just 29, and by December 4, it had fallen further to just seven. In South 24 Parganas, the TMC bastion, the list of such booths shrank from 760 to a single centre.

The ECI claims that new voter applications point to spikes in the border districts in recent months, especially since the Bihar SIR was announced. According to the ECI's figures, between June 1 and August 7, around 10.04 lakh new voter applications were submitted across the entire state, and in the eight border districts that number was roughly half the total, about 5.83 lakh. 

Applications in North 24 Parganas jumped from about 28,000 (June 1) to 1.37 lakh (August 7), in South 24-Parganas, from about 22,000 (June 1) to 95,000 (August 7), in Cooch Behar, from 11,000 (June 1) to 45,000 (August 7); in North Dinajpur, from 15,000 (June 1) to 57,000 (August 7), in Malda, from 16,000 (June 1) to 64,000 (August 7), and in Murshidabad, from around 16,500 (June 1) to 94,000 (August 7). Officials say these numbers, combined with the booth-wise anomalies, have reinforced the case for intensive verification. In contrast, in the nearly three months before that, from  March 1 to May 31, the total number of applications across West Bengal was just 2.33 lakh, with the border districts accounting for 1.29 lakh.

The ECI has circulated a set of data-quality checks to detect bogus entries and manipulation of family structures. This involves flagging mismatches in parent details between the 2002 and 2025 rolls, scrutinising 60 voters who have newly declared themselves heads of family, and rechecking family links where age gaps between grandparents, parents, and children appear implausible. 

Both BJP and the Left have released multiple audio clips alleging the ruling TMC of systematically trying to block the deletion of ineligible names from the rolls. The TMC has not yet formally responded.

The allegations have intensified claims that BLOs are working “under political duress”, a condition even the Commission has acknowledged. 

“Many BLOs are working under political duress. We understand their condition. That is why they are being given a chance to rectify errors, if there are any, on the enumeration form,” said Gupta.

To safeguard the process, every entry made in the BLO app, he stressed, must now be checked again against the hard copy of the corresponding form.

Meanwhile, questions have also been raised over an all-party meeting in Falta last week, where supporters of the ruling party were reportedly presented as Booth Level Agents from opposition parties.

Asked about the matter, Gupta responded briefly, saying, “If the respective political parties give formal complaints, they will be enquired into,” indicating that the ECI will act only once formal representations are received.

CPI(M) central committee member and former MP from the Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency Samik Lahiri confirmed that the party has formally lodged a complaint with the ECI.

“We have lodged a complaint on the basis of which the Commission did conduct an enquiry,” Lahiri alleged. “Only 18 BLOs attended; the rest ignored it. Our Booth Level Agents were not allowed to work. The SIR in Diamond Harbour [the constituency of Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek] is effectively being run from the TMC party office.”

As the draft roll inches closer to completion, Bengal’s electoral list will remain the epicentre of an escalating political storm.

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