Draft electoral roll published in Bengal: Five crucial things you should know

After publishing the draft roll, the ECI has also instructed BLOs to sit at their respective booths during daytime hours so that electors can visit and check their names in the voter list.

Deleted names published

Apart from the names included in the draft roll, the Election Commission of India has also published the list of names excluded from the draft voters’ list.

According to ECI sources, a total of 58,08,232 enumeration forms were not uploaded on the BLO application. Of these, 24,18,699 belong to deceased voters, 12,01,462 to untraceable voters, 19,93,087 to permanently shifted voters, 1,37,475 to voters enrolled at multiple places, and 57,509 fall under other categories.

Who will be called for hearings?

ECI sources said the 2025 electoral roll of West Bengal has 7.66 crore voters. Of these, around 58 lakh forms were not collected, while approximately 30 lakh voters have no mapping.

Among the remaining electors, 2.93 crore electors have self-mapping, and 3.84 crore voters have progeny mapping.

Progenic mapping applies to electors whose names do not appear in the 2002 SIR electoral roll but are linked through blood relations such as father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, or other blood relatives.

According to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, there will be no specific marking in the draft electoral roll to indicate which voters will be called for hearing. A senior ECI official said, “We will not mark those names in the draft electoral roll who are eligible for hearing or whose information given in the enumeration form is questionable.”

He added, “The Election Commission will call those electors for hearing through a notice. These notices will be auto-generated. The notice will be served at the residence of the elector, and the date, time and venue will be mentioned, where the elector has to go to show their documents.”

Where will the hearings be held?

According to the Election Commission of India, Block Development Offices (BDOs) and Sub-divisional Offices (SDOs) will serve as hearing centres for each constituency. One Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) and ten Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) will be deputed for hearings in each constituency.

A senior official said, “Preliminary hearing centres will be constituted in BDO and SDO offices. If the number of hearings increases, adjacent state government offices will be hired for the hearings.”

As per the ECI schedule, hearings will continue until February 7 next year, following which the final electoral roll will be published on February 14.

The official added, “Initially, it was decided that 50 hearings would be conducted per day. After seeing the huge number of hearings, the Commission has decided that at least 100 hearings will be conducted per day to complete the process by February 7.”

What to do if your name is omitted

If a person’s name is omitted from the draft electoral roll, Form No. 6 should be collected from the booth. The concerned person should ask the BLO for Form No. 6 and fill it along with Annexure Form No. 4. Address proof and birth certificate documents must be submitted along with the form.

From December 16 onwards, following the publication of the draft roll, the process of deletion, correction and inclusion in the voter list has resumed. Voters can now submit applications accordingly.