New Delhi: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal has thrown up one number that cuts through all the spin: 2,208 polling booths where every single enumeration form has come back filled and not one voter has been flagged as dead, duplicate, shifted or untraceable.

The Election Commission itself has called such “perfection” “almost impossible” after 23 years without an intensive roll clean-up, especially at this scale. It has ordered district election officers in 22 of 24 districts to explain and re-verify these booths, as well as those showing only 1–10 “uncollectable” forms.

Across the rest of Bengal, SIR looks like a normal, messy clean-up: nearly 14 lakh forms have been flagged as uncollectable, each tied to absentee, duplicate, deceased or permanently m

See Full Page