The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal has descended into confusion, triggering allegations of wrongful deletions, technical failures and mounting legal challenges just weeks before the state Assembly elections scheduled for late April.

What was apparently intended by the Election Commission of India (ECI) as an exercise to 'clean up' outdated voter records has instead generated widespread anxiety and suspicion among voters, with lakhs fearing exclusion from the rolls, and many more lakhs already excluded.

What went wrong in West Bengal, given that the SIR has been conducted in other states as well? The SIR exercise began in November 2025 with the stated aim of correcting legacy issues in voter lists derived from the 2002 baseline electoral rolls. Booth-level officers (BLOs) were tasked with conducting door-to-door verification to confirm details such as names, age, address and family linkages. However, the process soon ran into difficulties as the ERONET software system flagged large numbers of entries as 'logically inconsistent'.

Officials say the software struggled to reconcile variations in transliteration between Bengali and English spellings — for instance, differences such as 'Mohammed' and 'Muhammad', or 'Mondal' and 'Mandal'. In many cases, poor-quality scans of older electoral rolls also hindered efforts to digitally match family records.

As a result, around 1.36 crore entries were flagged for discrepancies, far exceeding initial........

© National Herald