West Bengal SIR: Nadia tops list of 'illegal' voters after hearings; none found in south Kolkata, Bankura

Kolkata: The West Bengal government on Tuesday said the SIR in the state has so far led to the identification of more than 11,000 "illegal" voters, with Nadia district accounting for the overwhelming majority, while no such electors have been found yet in Bankura and the southern part of the city during the ongoing hearings.

The Election Commission, however, did not respond to the data shared by the state government.

The EC is holding Special Intensive Revision (SIR) hearings across the state, where it has found logical discrepancies.

According to the data released by the state government, as many as 9,30,993 voters have completed hearings under the ongoing SIR process, and their details have been uploaded online.

Following these hearings and verification of documents, Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who are state government employees, have so far identified 11,472 voters as "illegal", whose names will be deleted from the final electoral roll, officials said.

The SIR exercise, aimed at cleaning up the voters' list, has generated a total of 65,78,058 notices across the state so far. Of these, 32,49,091 notices have already been issued, the state government data said.

Hearings have been completed for 9,30,993 voters who received notices, leading to the identification of the illegal voters, the officials said.

District-wise figures shared by the West Bengal government show that Nadia has recorded the highest number of illegal voters at 9,228 after hearings.

In contrast, despite a large number of notices being generated, no illegal voters have been found so far in the southern part of Kolkata, where 1,36,561 notices were generated, and Bankura, where 1,63,357 notices were issued.

According to the data, Cooch Behar reported 10 illegal voters so far, Jalpaiguri four, Darjeeling two, Uttar Dinajpur two and Dakshin Dinajpur 195.

In Malda, 15 voters were identified as illegal, while Murshidabad recorded 68, North 24 Parganas 147 and South 24 Parganas 69.

In the northern part of Kolkata, 54 illegal voters were found, while Howrah reported 26, Hooghly 989 and Purba Medinipur two. Paschim Medinipur district recorded 105 such voters, Purulia 44, Purba Bardhaman 167 and Birbhum 264.

Among the hill and forest districts, Alipurduar reported nine illegal voters, Kalimpong 65, Jhargram three and Paschim Bardhaman four, the officials said.

The SIR process has become a major political flashpoint in the state, with opposition parties claiming that the exercise would help identify fake voters, while the ruling Trinamool Congress has questioned the manner in which it is being carried out.

Political observers said the latest figures released by the state government are likely to intensify the debate further, as all eyes are now on whether the number of illegal voters changes when the final electoral rolls are published.

The data comes amid heightened political sparring over the SIR exercise.

After the completion of the first phase, the draft electoral rolls published on December 16 showed the electorate shrinking from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore, with over 58 lakh names deleted statewide.

According to Election Commission officials, the exclusions in the first phase were made on grounds such as death, permanent migration, duplication and non-submission of enumeration forms.

The draft rolls also showed that around 1.83 lakh voters were categorised as 'fake' or 'ghost'.

The second phase of the SIR is currently underway and involves hearings of 1.67 crore electors under scrutiny, including 1.36 crore flagged for logical discrepancies and around 31 lakh voters whose records lack mapping.