Calcutta and its adjoining areas that come under South and North 24-Parganas are likely to witness deletion of nearly 25 lakh dead, shifted, duplicate and fictitious voters from the electoral rolls if the early signs of data uploaded by the booth-level officers are anything to go by.
Election Commission sources said primary analysis of data uploaded by the BLOs suggests around 5 lakh names on the rolls of 11 Assembly segments of Calcutta could come under serious scrutiny. The figure could be around 10 lakh in the city's adjoining areas of North 24-Parganas, including Salt Lake, New Town and Rajarhat.
“The figure is not final. But the early signs suggest an approximate figure. The final figure can only be determined once all enumeration forms are digitised by December 4,” said a poll panel source.
The picture is no different in parts of Calcutta that come under South 24-Parganas, like Sonarpur, Behala, Baruipur and Jadavpur. EC sources believed that almost 10 lakh people from these areas could come under serious scrutiny.
Initial findings could leave the ruling Trinamool Congress uncomfortable, as these areas are its known bastions. Trinamool bagged all 11 seats in Calcutta, all 31 seats in South 24-Parganas and 25 of 33 seats in North 24-Parganas in the 2021 state polls.
“So far, 5.37 crore out of 7.64 crore forms, which were distributed, were digitised till Tuesday. Based on the data uploads, it appears that a large number of names that figure in the poll rolls of Calcutta and adjoining areas of North and South 24-Parganas are of dead, shifted, duplicate or fictitious persons,” said an EC source.
Sources said initial trends of data suggest that nearly 3 lakh names in Asansol would also come under scrutiny.
“Overall, the figure is not that bad in rural areas. There are dead, shifted, duplicate and fictitious voters in rural areas too, but not as high as in urban areas," said a source.
He continued: “In rural areas, if a booth has a total of 1,000 voters, about 70 dead, fictitious and duplicate voters were found. But in urban areas, the figure is much higher, sometimes morethan double.”
Sources said that the primary assessment suggested that most of the names that could come under the scanner were in the city’s Calcutta Port and Kasba areas.
“It is assumed that about 50,000 names that figure in the existing rolls of Calcutta Port could come under the scanner of EC. The figure is almost the same in the case of Kasba. There are signs that there could be a substantial number of names that could come under the scanner in Assembly segments like Beliaghata, Entally, Ballygunge and Kashipur-Belgachia,” said another official aware of the development.
If the initial trends hold true, it could leave all parties in a spot ahead of the 2026 polls, as no calculation could be done after the deletion of so many names.
“Calcutta has a total of 23.98 lakh voters. If a figure somewhere near 5 lakh names are deleted, no party would be able to calculate their vote share as all calculations have to be done afresh,” said an official.
Calculations would be tough in North and South 24-Parganas too. The total number of electors could come down to 72 lakh from 82.10 lakh existing voters in North 24 Parganas if the primary signs come true. In the case of South 24-Parganas, the total number of voters could come down to 75 lakh from the existing 85.01 lakh.
