The Centre on Tuesday claimed a sharp increase in voters’ numbers in nine districts of Bengal bordering Bangladesh compared to the 2002 data to justify the ongoing SIR being conducted in 12 states and Union Territories (UTs) to, among other things, weed out infiltrators from the voters’ list.

During a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on electoral reforms, leader of the House and health minister J.P. Nadda said the Election Commission of India was justified in carrying out the SIR to delete undocumented foreigners from the voters’ list.

“In 2002, the SIR was last conducted. In Bengal, the number of registered voters has increased from 4.8 crore to 7.63 crore. The ECI’s data shows that among the top 10 districts with the highest increase are nine districts that border Bangladesh,” Nadda said.

The minister said the increase ranged between 70 per cent and 105 per cent in these districts. He said the increase was 105.49 per cent in North Dinajpur, followed by 94.8 per cent in Malda, 87.65 per cent in Murshidabad, 83.3 per cent in the two 24-Parganas and 82.3 per cent in Jalpaiguri. The total increase of “a particular community” in Bengal was 7.5 per cent.