West Bengal: Election Commission releases third supplementary voter list, suspense over number of names removed

Kolkata, 29 March. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has released the third supplementary voter list under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists. However, the Election Commission has not given any details about the total number of voters removed or included in this third list. This list has been released after the publication of the second supplementary list on Friday night.

The Election Commission had released the first supplementary list of ‘under adjudication’ voters last Monday (March 23), but it remained tight-lipped on the number of names removed from the list or the exact number of cases disposed of, leading to criticism from various quarters.

According to an Election Commission official, ‘supplementary list’ refers to an additional list of names of voters, which is included in the final voter list after it is published. These generally include the names of newly registered voters who have been included back in the list after correction and verification of information. Along with this, the office has also released the related deletion list, which includes names removed due to reasons like duplication, death, or change of residence.

The election official said that releasing the supplementary list in different phases ensures that all eligible voters are included in the list before the upcoming elections and the correct information of the list is also maintained. The official said, ‘Now the supplementary list will be released regularly as per the instructions of the court.’

It is noteworthy that a total of 58 lakh names were removed after the counting phase of the SIR process in West Bengal, reducing the number of eligible voters in the state to 7.08 crore from the initial 7.66 crore. This was done due to reasons like death, migration, duplication and non-traceability.

In the list after the SIR released on February 28, the number of valid voters further reduced to a little more than 7.04 crore, while more than 60 lakh names are still under judicial scrutiny. Another source of the Election Commission said that there were about 10 lakh names in the first supplementary list and 21 lakh names in the second supplementary list.

Voting for the 294-member West Bengal Assembly will be held on April 23 and 29 and counting of votes will take place on May 4. The booth-wise list was made available on the Election Commission’s website at around 11.30 am.