Full Breakdown
West Bengal’s Voter Deletions and the Special Enrolment Drive: Form 6 Amid Legal and Administrative Disputes
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event – Form 6 Offered as Remedy for Deleted Voters
The West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer announced that any eligible voter whose name was removed during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) can apply for reinstatement by submitting Form 6 online or through a Booth-Level Officer. The notice, issued on October 6, also made the ASDD (Absent, Shifted, Dead, Deleted) list publicly available on the state election website. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed CEOs in all 20 states and Union Territories where SIR is complete to run a special enrolment drive on a “war footing,” allowing left-out voters to use Form 6 without the additional SIR declaration.
Background & Context
SIR is a nationwide exercise intended to purge “logical discrepancies” from electoral rolls. The draft roll published on December 16 2025 in West Bengal listed about 58.2 lakh names under the ASDD categories. After adjudication, the final West Bengal roll showed over 27 lakh deletions. The Supreme Court, on March 10, ordered the creation of 19 single-member appellate tribunals to review these deletions. By September 18, the ECI reported 38.31 lakh appeals, of which only 1.26 lakh (? 3 %) had been disposed of.
Official Statements & Responses
- CEO Arindam Niyogi said applicants must be mapped only to the 2002 voter list when filling Form 6.
- In a video conference on October 2, the ECI instructed all CEOs to compare pre-SIR lists with current rolls and enrol eligible left-out voters within one month via Form 6.
- The Election Commission’s press note reiterated that “any eligible voter who finds that his or her name has been left out can submit Form 6 online or approach the Booth Level Officer for inclusion in the electoral roll.”
Criticism & Opposition
- Former West Bengal CEO Jawhar Sircar called the appellate tribunals a “blunder,” arguing that Section 24 of the Representation of the People Act makes the CEO and Electoral Registration Officer responsible for re-enrolment, not the tribunals.
- BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said the 13 crore names struck off the draft rolls include deceased, shifted, duplicate and untraceable voters, not final deletions, and warned that the opposition seeks to “shield fake voters.”
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
- The CEO’s office has not clarified whether voters whose appeals remain pending can use Form 6; an ECI senior official said the matter would be discussed later.
- Two election commissioners, Vivek Joshi (May 16) and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu (May 19), objected that any alteration to Form 6 requires parliamentary amendment. Sandhu later labeled the online change “unauthorised/illegal.” The EC’s subsequent fact-check cited the Supreme Court’s May 27 ruling, creating a discrepancy between internal objections and the commission’s public position.
What’s Next – Ongoing Enrolment Activities
Special camps have opened in Hooghly’s Chanditala, Tarakeshwar and Chandannagar. The ECI has asked all states to begin door-to-door verification by BLOs, followed by house-to-house visits. In Uttarakhand, a three-day camp schedule runs from October 8 to 10, with verification visits later in the month. The West Bengal drive is expected to continue through the month, with the CEO’s office monitoring applications submitted via Form 6.
*All statements and figures are attributed to the officials, agencies, or publications that provided them.*