Over 3 Lakh ‘No-Mapping’ Voters Skip SIR Hearings in Bengal

UNI, Kolkata, 23 January 2026 : More than three lakh ‘no-mapping’ voters did not appear for hearings under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, despite being served notices by the Election Commission of India.

According to commission sources, notices specifying dates and venues were issued to nearly 32 lakh ‘no-mapping’ voters. 

As the hearing process nears completion, data shows that around 10 per cent of them failed to turn up. 

This translates to nearly 3.2 lakh voters who remained absent from the hearings.

At the time of publishing the draft electoral rolls, the commission had stated that West Bengal had 31,68,426 ‘no-mapping’ voters — electors who could not establish a linkage with the last SIR conducted in 2002. All of them were called for hearings in the first phase. However, by the final stage, around 10 per cent did not respond.

Apart from ‘no-mapping’ cases, voters with logical discrepancies in their records have also been summoned for hearings. Hearings are scheduled to conclude on 7 February, with the final electoral roll due on 14 February, though the deadline may be extended. 

Officials said that ‘no-mapping’ voters will still be given an opportunity to participate, failing which their names will be removed from the final list as per rules.

Recently, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to publish the list of voters with logical discrepancies. 

The commission has said that this list, along with the list of ‘no-mapping’ voters, will be published on Saturday. In total, around 1.26 crore names are expected to feature in the combined lists.

The draft electoral roll was published on 16 December, following which more than 58 lakh names were deleted.

If the nearly three lakh ‘no-mapping’ voters who skipped hearings are also removed, the total number of deletions could rise to around 61 lakh.