West Bengal Suspends Hearings for ‘Unmapped’ Voters Amid Roll Deletion Concerns

New Delhi: The West Bengal election authorities have temporarily suspended personal hearings for certain voters flagged for deletion during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, after officials raised concerns about potential large-scale "system-driven" deletions, The Indian Express reported.

The state's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has directed that hearings be paused for voters marked as "unmapped," those not found in the 2002 electoral roll by the Election Commission's software, pending further verification.

State officials told The Indian Express that ground-level checks of hard copies from the 2002 rolls revealed many electors flagged as "unmapped" by the EC's central software were actually present in the physical records. The pause applies only to these cases where software records conflict with hard copy documents, not to cases flagged by local Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) after on-ground verification.

Also read: ECI Reactivates ‘Defective’ Software for Voter Rolls Despite Submission to Supreme Court: Report

According to the report, officials expressed concern that local EROs could be held responsible for deletion notices generated centrally, particularly when physical records contradict the software's findings.

Under EC instructions issued on October 27, all existing electors were required to ‘map’ themselves or a family member to the 2002 electoral roll, the last intensive revision in West Bengal, to continue as registered voters.

Following the December 16 publication of the draft electoral roll, approximately 5.8 million names were deleted after voters were classified as dead, relocated, or absent. Personal hearings based on centrally generated notices had begun on December 27 before the suspension was announced.

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