Kolkata, Aug. 27 -- Only around 2% of the 38 lakh appeals filed against the exclusion of voters from West Bengal's electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) have been decided by appellate tribunals since March 2026.
According to a Right to Information (RTI) response from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, 75,443 of the decided appeals resulted in the voters being included in the electoral roll, while 7,339 resulted in their exclusion. This means 91.13% of the appeals that have been decided so far resulted in the inclusion of voters in the electoral roll. These voters had not been allowed to cast their votes in the recent West Bengal assembly elections. The RTI response was issued following an application by Congress MP Isha Khan Choudhury, who sought information on appeals arising from the SIR exercise.
As of the data available, 37,27,838 appeals, or 97.83% of the total, remained pending. This means only about one in every 46 appeals had been decided.
Supreme Court seeks details of pending appeals
The figures were brought before the Supreme Court in a matter concerning the functioning of the SIR appellate tribunals. A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana directed the Election Commission of India to provide details of the pending appeals and the nature of relief sought in those cases.
The RTI data also showed a significant reduction in West Bengal's electoral roll following the SIR process. The state had 7,60,10,006 electors in the 2024 electoral roll. By February 28, 2026, the final SIR roll contained 6,44,52,609 electors, representing a decline of 1,15,57,397, or 15.21%. The number of male electors fell by 58,02,457, or 15.03%, while female electors declined by 57,54,317, or 15.39%. Third-gender electors recorded a proportionally larger decline of 35.14%, with their numbers falling from 1,773 to 1,150.
District-wise variation in voter roll reduction
The reduction in the electoral roll varied considerably across districts. Kolkata South recorded the largest proportional decline, with its electorate falling by 32.29%, or 2,90,610 voters. Maldah followed with a 31.69% reduction, amounting to 10,01,054 fewer electors.
Kolkata North and Uttar Dinajpur recorded declines of 30.39% and 27.92%, respectively. Murshidabad's electoral roll fell by 23.29%, while Paschim Bardhaman recorded an 18.62% reduction. Purba Medinipur saw the smallest proportional decline at 3.97%, followed by Bankura at 4.64% and Paschim Medinipur at 5.75%.
In terms of the absolute number of electors removed from the rolls, North 24 Parganas recorded the largest reduction at 14,44,123, followed by Murshidabad with 13,27,896 and South 24 Parganas with 12,85,364.
Appeals include objections by ECI officials
A plea before the Supreme Court by Congress member Prasenjit Bose stated that the SIR exercise resulted in more than 90.8 lakh electors being deleted, including 27.16 lakh names removed after adjudication. The Supreme Court had directed the formation of 19 appellate tribunals in March to hear challenges against such deletions.
According to the plea, around 7 lakh of the 27 lakh voters whose names were deleted after adjudication had appealed against their exclusion. The plea also referred to a Supreme Court order dated April 13, which recorded that more than 34 lakh appeals had been filed before the tribunals. These included appeals against exclusion as well as objections to the inclusion of voters, including appeals filed by Election Commission officials challenging decisions that restored names to the rolls. Bose has sought a category-wise breakdown of the pending appeals to establish how many were filed by excluded voters, ECI officials and other objectors.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.