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Kolkata: An application seeking a name’s deletion from the West Bengal’s electoral rolls was more than twice as likely to have reached an outcome as one seeking inclusion, according to constituency-level data submitted by the Election Commission of India to the Supreme Court.

The disparity became wider at the point of decision. Among applications with a recorded outcome, 97.54% of Form 7 requests seeking exclusion were accepted or had resulted in the electoral roll being updated. The corresponding rate for Form 6 applications seeking inclusion was 49.83%.

The figures are contained in Annexures R/1 and R/2 of the ECI’s counter-affidavit in a case filed by public-interest petitioner and Congress leader Prasenjit Bose. They cover claims and objections received in West Bengal between December 17, 2025 and August 7, 2026.

A citizen files Form 6 to be added to the list. Form 7 is filed to have a name deleted, either by the elector themselves or by a third-party objecting to their presence.

During the specified period, the Election Commission received 34,13,481 Form 6 applications. Of those, the roll was successfully updated for 7,07,606 citizens, with another 14,079 marked as accepted. A massive 7,26,660 were rejected outright.

This means only 20.73% of all Form 6 applications had actually resulted in a name being added to the roll.

The Commission received 6,39,049 Form 7 applications. Of these, 5,72,330 had resulted in the electoral roll being updated, while only 14,506 were rejected. Thus, 5,86,836 Form 7 applications, or 91.83%, had reached a completed outcome. Of those, 97.53% resulted in exclusion. The requested deletion had already been carried into the electoral roll in 89.56% of all Form 7 cases.

In other words, a Form 7 application was 2.19 times as likely as a Form 6 application to have reached a completed outcome. Looking at all applications received, a Form 7 request was 4.32 times as likely to have produced the requested change in the electoral roll.

The number of Form 7 applications was only 18.7% of the number of Form 6 applications. Yet completed Form 7 deletions amounted to nearly 81% of all completed Form 6 additions.

Twenty-eight additions from 28,701 claims

The statewide percentages conceal constituencies where almost no........

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