West Bengal CEO says eligible deleted voters can apply through Form 6 to restore name in rolls

Kolkata 

The West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) issued a statement on Tuesday saying any eligible voter whose name has been deleted during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls can apply for his/her name to be restored through Form 6. The list of deleted names is available online for people to check. 

Also read: Byelections 2026 highlights

“For the left out eligible voter, the list of ASDD [Absentee, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate] voters of SIR 2026 is available at the link ceowestbengal.wb.gov.in/asdsir and also at the respective links on the websites of the District Electoral Officers. Any person in this list may submit Form 6 online or through the Booth Level Officers [BLOs] for inclusion of his/her name in the electoral roll,” said the CEO.

According to the first draft roll published in December 2025, West Bengal had over 58 lakh ASDD voters. Around 24.16 lakh electors were identified as deceased, 32.65 lakh voters as shifted and absent, and 1.38 lakh electors were found to have duplicate enrolments in multiple places. 

Amid the rising turmoil over the Election Commission of India and the rising pressure on the poll body for alleged wrongful deletions, the ECI recently said it would undertake a special drive to restore the names left out during the SIR process. However, this did not initially include West Bengal. 

When the final voter roll came out in West Bengal, over 27 lakh people were deleted after the adjudication process found them ineligible. However, after the controversy, the Supreme Court set up 19 appellate tribunals to recheck these 27 lakh cases. These 19 tribunals are headed by former judges of the Calcutta High Court. 

However, no clarity has been offered on what will happen to the 27 lakh people who appealed to the tribunals to get their names restored. Whether they will also be eligible to fill up Form 6 to get reinstated in the voter rolls remained unclear. 

Voter registration camps 

Additional CEO Arindam Niyogi told The Hindu that they would hold special camps to ensure that the left out and new voters could be put back into the voter rolls. “This is complete misinformation that people need to be mapped with the 2002 voter list when they are filling up Form 6. No new voter has to be mapped,” Mr. Niyogi said. The notice from the CEO office has also asked any person above 18 to register and enroll their names in the voter list. 

A few of these camps have already started operating in Hooghly’s Chanditala, Tarakeshwar, and Chandannagar.  

‘Admission of guilt’

“Why are high ranking former judges being asked to look at appeals? This is the job of the CEO and the Electoral Registration Officer [ERO] according to Section 24 of the Representation of the People Act. These tribunals are a blunder and they are the reason why many may not be able to access Form 6 in West Bengal, because these people are stuck in between,” former CEO of West Bengal, Jawhar Sircar, told The Hindu. He said the notice published by the West Bengal CEO was a clear admission of guilt that there were “wrongful” deletions during the SIR unlike what was claimed by the authorities initially.  

Mamata-All India Trinamool Congress MP Sagarika Ghose criticised the ECI’s move to re-open registration after many voters were left out in West Bengal during the elections. “First, leave out LAKHS of eligible voters BEFORE the elections. Ensure @BJP4India wins elections at all costs. Next, offer to add deleted voters AFTER the elections, (after @BJP4India has won ILLEGALLY),” Ms. Ghose wrote on social media. The West Bengal CEO made a counter-post and termed her claims “misleading”. 

However, Ms. Ghose backed up her claims and raised the same questions later in the day.