6 months ago
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The bureau of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal has received a barrage of complaints from some the ruling Trinamool Congress and the Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), since the opening of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the State’s voters’ lists earlier this month.
On Wednesday (November 12, 2025), Leader of Opposition successful the West Bengal Assembly and BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari visited the CEO’s bureau and said a delegation of the saffron enactment submitted a pen thrust and printed copies of ‘evidence’ of astir 13.25 lakh ‘fake, duplicate and dormant voters’ crossed 5 Assembly constituencies.
“The CEO accepted it and instructed officials to probe our complaints successful each 294 Assembly constituencies. For instance, we flagged 11,896 dormant voters successful the Falta constituency,” Mr. Adhikari said.
He added that the BJP besides raised concerns regarding 5,700 booth-level officers (BLOs), alleging violations of ECI’s rules for BLO appointments, particularly successful alleged instances of BLOs having governmental affiliations. According to the LOP, the CEO’s bureau received reports for astir 70% of the cases, but are yet to measure the accuracy of the reports.
“We person filed 65 complaints from the BJP’s SIR power room. In immoderate cases, the BLO did not spell door-to-door but was distributing enumeration forms from the enactment bureau oregon the Councillor’s office. In immoderate cases, the BLO did not pass with BJP’s booth-level cause (BLA),” Mr. Adhikari said.
Meanwhile, according to sources successful the Trinamool, the ruling dispensation has filed astir 47 complaints since the opening of the SIR process till November 12, mostly concerning the functioning of BLOs during the enumeration phase. These see complaints surrounding the flawed execution of duties, improper organisation of forms, among others.
The enumeration signifier of the SIR successful West Bengal began connected November 4 and is slated to reason by December 4. During this phase, BLOs are expected to marque door-to-door visits to manus out, and subsequently, cod filled up enumeration forms from electors, and upload the collected information connected the BLO mobile application.
Apart from this, Trinamool leaders person besides made nationalist accusations against the Election Commission of India, accusing it of ‘favouring’ the BJP by modifying rules of the assignment of party-affiliated BLAs and raising alarms implicit the apt deletion of implicit 30 lakh dormant voters successful West Bengal based connected Aadhar data.
ECI delegation to visit
Meanwhile, a delegation of the Election Commission of India, including the Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, is apt to sojourn Kolkata aboriginal adjacent week to show the advancement of the ongoing SIR and be an upcoming peculiar gathering connected Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), according to sources successful the bureau of the State’s Chief Electoral Officer.
The peculiar gathering connected EVMs is scheduled to beryllium held successful Kolkata connected November 21 and volition beryllium attended by CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal, the territory magistrates, and high-ranking officials from the ECI similar Mr. Bharti, sources further said. The territory magistrates are expected to acquisition last grooming and discussions connected EVMs for the upcoming 2026 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections.
Additionally, the ECI delegation volition show the advancement of SIR successful Kolkata and South Bengal for 2 days and taxable a study to the Commission.
Earlier this month, Mr. Bharti and Mr. Agarwal had conducted reappraisal meetings on with district-level officials successful Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts successful North Bengal connected the ongoing SIR.
