New Delhi: When the SIR is conducted in West Bengal, about 45 per cent of the voters are estimated to be excluded. When compared with the voters' list of 2002 at the booth level, only 55 per cent are eligible to vote in the state, Election Commission sources said. The state's last voter list was revised in 2002. With the assembly elections due next year, when the current SIR is being conducted in the state, only those whose names are in the 2002 list or whose parents' names are in it will be considered eligible voters. If anyone else wants to get their name included in the voter list, they will have to submit one of the 12 documents prescribed by the Election Commission to prove their address and citizenship.
Those who do not have their own name or the name of their parents in the 2002 list are those who changed their place of residence and address. Another category is those who started living in Bengal alone or with their family after 2002. These two categories together amount to 20 per cent. Even then, the status of about 25 per cent (two crore voters) will be uncertain. They will have to prove where they came from.
Election Commission sources said that those who cannot submit the necessary documents will have to be excluded from the list.
The BJP claims that there are about 1.5 crore fake voters in the state, and the Trinamool Congress is providing fake documents to illegal migrants to add them to the voters’ list.
In Kerala, the SIR of the electoral roll will start from Tuesday. The process will last for more than three months, from October 28 to February 7, 2026, when the final voter list will be published. The Election Commission's existing voter list in the state was frozen on Monday midnight. Now, only those who add their names to the SIR will remain voters, the Election Commission announced.