The Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal has said that nearly 47.07 lakh names are expected to be removed from the state’s electoral roll, stressing that the number is only tentative.
Sources in the Election Commission of India said the proposed deletions include more than 22.45 lakh entries belonging to deceased voters, about 16.53 lakh people who have moved elsewhere, nearly 6.77 lakh electors who are untraceable or suspected to be “ghost” voters, over 1.07 lakh duplicate records, and around 22,800 names marked for removal for other reasons.
A senior election official said the Commission had also come across three locations in the state where the present voter lists showed zero self-mapping with the 2002 SIR roll, Indian Express reported.
He indicated that such a situation where none of the current voters in a booth appeared to have been living there in 2002 was highly unusual, and added that an inquiry had been ordered. EC data showed that the affected booths are Part 110, Dinahata Assembly constituency (Cooch Behar) with 782 electors; Part 48, Kultali Assembly constituency (South 24 Parganas) with 768 electors, and Part 53, Pandua Assembly constituency (Hooghly) with 668 electors.
Kolkata North has recorded the highest percentage of dead voters — 6.91 per cent of its total electorate, numbering 1,04,076. Kolkata South follows with 6.06 per cent, or 54,985 dead voters. North 24 Parganas has 2,88,000 dead voters (3.46 per cent), while South 24 Parganas has 2,79,000 (3.25 per cent). East and West Medinipur have the lowest percentages of dead voters: 1.4 per cent (59,800) and 2 per cent (80,130), respectively.