कर्नाटक व पश्चिम बंगाल में चुनावी रोल से हटाए गए लाखों मतदाता: समीक्षा प्रक्रिया में देरी और अपील लंबित

People in Karnataka are reeling under the impact of large-scale deletions from the electoral rolls under the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR). From the beginning, civil society organisations have said that the entire SIR process is on an unnecessarily rushed administrative timeline, and the fallout is now visible in the pending hearings that will decide the fate of lakhs of voters.

The enumeration phase of the SIR in Karnataka began on June 30 with nearly 5.55 crore voters on its rolls. In the draft roll published on August 24, nearly 1.08 crore voters had been deleted under the “absent, shifted, duplicate, or dead” (ASDD) category. The draft roll of 4.46 crore electors was not without its problems: over 43 lakh people on the list received notices and had to appear for further hearings. Those whose names were deleted have to make a fresh application to be included in the electoral roll, while those who received notices have to provide additional documentation and appear before the Electoral Registration Officer or Assistant Electoral Registration Officer for hearings.

Several issues have marred the process, including its opacity (the public release of the list of electors who were issued notices happened only on September 7, and that too after sustained pressure). At the time of writing this report, over a third of the notices had yet to be served to electors. Those who are not able to clear their name by the October 12 deadline will not feature in the final electoral roll. Despite the massive pendencies, the ECI has set October 27 as the deadline for the final electoral roll for Karnataka.

Meanwhile, people in West Bengal are still dealing with the consequences of the large-scale deletions from the electoral rolls. Six months after the final electoral rolls were published, the pendency of tribunal hearings and the adjudication process has raised concerns, with some calculations estimating that nearly 12 years will be needed to clear the backlog.

When the SIR process began in November 2025, West Bengal had 7.66 crore electors. Over 63 lakh names were deleted under the ASDD category at the time of publication of the draft roll on December 16. Nearly 1.2 crore were flagged for “logical discrepancies”, and 30 lakh were classified as “unmapped” (to the 2002 SIR). The final electoral roll was published on February 28, 2026.

Amid growing contestation over the SIR process in West Bengal, the Supreme Court decided to intervene in mid-February. On March 10, the court directed the constitution of special tribunals. Over 38 lakh appeals—about both inclusions and exclusions—were filed in West Bengal after the final rolls were published. As per an ECI affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court in September, only 1,02,231 appeals had been disposed of so far by the 19 tribunals.

The severity of the crisis came to light after the court asked the ECI (in August) to release information about pendency and disposal of appeals. The ECI submitted to the court that over 22 lakh of these appeals were from people disenfranchised by the SIR.

The eligibility of over 37 lakh people to vote remains undecided ahead of the upcoming municipal elections in the State. But the concerns of people in West Bengal go beyond electoral rights. After coming to power in May this year, the BJP government in the State linked the Annapurna Yojana (cash transfer to women) to the voter ID. In July, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari claimed that 26 lakh applicants were rejected because of lack of voter ID.

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