EC made 16 lakh appeals against cleared voters ahead of Bengal polls?

New Delhi: The Election Commission (EC) appealed against the inclusion of nearly 16.1 lakh voters in West Bengal whose names had been cleared by judicial officers, filing the bulk of the challenges just days before the electoral rolls were frozen ahead of the Assembly elections, an investigation by The Wire has found.

The poll body's appeals targeted 49.4 per cent of the 32.53 lakh voters whom judicial officers had deemed eligible for inclusion during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The findings are based on appeal records collected and verified by the independent Civic Research Group, which shared its data with The Wire.

An analysis of appeal identification numbers revealed a striking pattern. Nearly 99 per cent of the appeals examined carried timestamps corresponding to just three dates — April 5, 6 and 8, 2026. More than 12 lakh appeals reportedly shared the April 5 timestamp, raising questions about whether the challenges were prepared or uploaded in bulk rather than filed individually.

The timing has drawn particular attention because judicial officers had completed decisions on more than 60 lakh cases by the first week of April. The electoral rolls were frozen at midnight on April 7, while the first phase of polling took place on April 23.

According to the report, the shared timestamps suggest that many appeals may have been processed in batches. However, the pattern alone does not establish who authorised the filings or whether each appeal was individually examined before submission. The Election Commission is in a position to confirm how the identification system and filing process worked.

The Civic Research Group's analysis covered nearly 99.6 per cent of voters placed under adjudication during the SIR. It identified 16,08,175 EC appeals against voters cleared by judicial officers, closely matching the Commission's figure of 16,10,311 submitted to the Supreme Court.

Earlier reporting by The Wire also cited retired judge Indrajit Chatterjee, who was handling appeals in Murshidabad, as saying that a substantial proportion of cases before his tribunal had been filed by the Additional Chief Electoral Officer. Notices naming the Additional CEO have also appeared in proceedings defending challenges to voter inclusion.

The report raises serious questions about the scale and timing of the EC's appeals, particularly when voters' eligibility had already been assessed by judicial officers.