3 months ago
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The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal on Saturday (February 7, 2026) sought a one-week extension from the Election Commission of India (ECI) to implicit the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, arsenic astir 5% of the hearings stay pending aft the original deadline expired on Saturday (February 7, 2026).
In a proposal sent to the ECI connected Saturday (February 7, 2026), CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal sought further clip to complete hearings, upload documents, process submissions of forms 6, 7 and 8, and digitise all records. The projected revised deadline for completing the groundwork is February 14. The last rolls were earlier scheduled to beryllium published connected February 14. If the hold is approved, officials said the work of the last rolls could beryllium pushed to February 21.
According to officials successful the CEO office, hearings are pending successful astir 11 of the State’s 294 Assembly constituencies.
“About 95-97% of the hearings person been completed, and implicit 75% of the digitisation process is done. We person sought a seven-day hold from the ECI, which whitethorn further propulsion the work of the last electoral rolls by a fewer days,” Mr. Agarwal said.
He added that he received multiple requests from District Electoral Officers (DEO) for a deadline extension, pursuing which the proposal was forwarded to the ECI. As of Saturday evening, nary ceremonial confirmation connected the date extension had been received from the Commission.
Sources in the CEO bureau said that pending hearings see 1 constituency successful northbound Kolkata, 7 successful southbound Kolkata, 1 in Darjeeling, 1 successful Howrah, and a fewer others. Voters who neglect to look for their scheduled hearings adjacent aft the extended deadline hazard deletion from the last electoral rotation for 2026.
Following the work of the archetypal draught electoral rotation in December, astir 58 lakh voters were deleted under categories specified arsenic death, imperishable code shift, oregon untraceable. Additionally, implicit 1.36 crore voters were flagged nether the “logical discrepancy” class and were issued notices to look for hearings.
However, an updated database released successful aboriginal January showed that the fig of voters with logical discrepancies had travel down to 94.49 lakh. Around 31.68 lakh voters were classified arsenic the “unmapped” category—those incapable to establish any nexus to the 2002 electoral roll through either self-mapping or progeny mapping.
Meanwhile, according to an authoritative notification issued connected Friday (February 6, 2026), the ECI clarified that domicile oregon imperishable nonmigratory certificates issued by West Bengal authorities would beryllium accepted arsenic valid impervious of individuality during SIR hearings. However, specified certificates volition beryllium valid lone if issued by the territory magistrate, additional district magistrate, sub-divisional serviceman oregon the Collector (Kolkata).
