Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI), from Thursday, will start sending notices for hearing on the claims and objections on the draft voters’ list in West Bengal, thus marking the end of the first stage of the three-part Special Intensive Exercise (SIR), which started from November 4.
The draft list was published on Tuesday. Sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said that to begin with, the ECI will send notices to the “unmapped” voters, which means those voters who have no connection with the voters’ list for 2002, either through “self-mapping” or through ”progeny mapping”.
“Self-mapping voters” are those who have names in both the current voters’ list as of October 2025 and the list for 2002, the last time the ISR was conducted in West Bengal.
On the other hand, the “progeny mapping voters” include those whose parents’ names appear on the list for 2002.
The number of unmapped voters in West Bengal identified as “unmapped voters” currently stands at 30,59,273.
“Those who will be served with notices for hearing will be given seven days to be present for the hearing. The dates, times, and venues for the hearing will be mentioned in the notices,” a CEO’s office insider said.
These 30,59,273 are in addition to the 58,20,899 excluded voters from the earlier list as of October 2025, which include deceased voters, shifted voters, untraceable voters, duplicate voters, and voters suitable for exclusion because of other reasons.
At the same time, the ECI has also identified over 1.60 crore voters, in whose cases weird family-tree data has been detected despite those voters having links with the 2002 list either through “self-mapping” or through “progeny mapping”. Many of these voters with doubtful family-tree data would also be summoned for a hearing and asked to explain the weirdness on this count.
The voters with weird family data include those who have fathers’ and mothers’ names the same in the last voters’ list, voters who became fathers at the age of 15 or even below, and voters who became grandfathers at the age of 40 or even below.
An instance has surfaced where the voter has been identified who supposedly became a father of two sons at the age of five.
The final voters’ list for West Bengal will be published on February 14 next year. Soon after that, the ECI will announce the polling dates for the Assembly elections in the state.
(IANS)
