The draft roll of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Kolkata and adjoining areas of New Town has shown that the most deleted names bear surnames like ‘Das’, ‘Singh’, and ‘Shaw’. An analysis of the pre-finale electoral list studied by Kolkata-based SABAR Institute showed that out of the names eliminated ‘Das’ accounted for 16.73% and Singh totaled 12.11%. Apart from this, names with surname ‘Shaw’ comprised 7.82% of the deletions.
The public data research institute published it study on X where it showed a striking trend in Kolkata’s voter exclusions in non-death cases.
“While Das tops the list as the most common deleted names, the majority of these cases pertain to non-Bengali individuals,” the study read. Other eliminations include surnames like Roy, Khatoon, Yadav, Begum, Ram, Sharma, Mondal, Ghosh, Khan , Gupta, Alam, Mahato, and Dey. Roy and Khatoon account for 6.24% and 5.03% deletions respectively.
According to SABAR, the data studied were from the lists published by the Election Commission of India on their public domain. The study is a composite list of 17 Assembly constituencies from Kolkata, Bhawanipore and Kolkata Port.
In Bhowanipore, which Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s constituency, the list of names removed had about 18.81% with ‘Das’ as surname and ‘Singh’ comprised of 13%. This was followed by ‘Yadav’, ‘Roy’ and ‘Shaw’, which accounted for 7.63%, 7.34% and 5.95%, respectively.
The analysis showed a change in trend for Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim’s constituency, which is Kolkata Port Trust. According to the report, the surname ‘Singh’ appeared in the most-deleted segment covering about 13.27% of the deletions. This was followed by ‘Khatoon’ and ‘Das’, which covered 8.41% and 7.66%, respectively. Similar data also emerged from Jorashako Assembly Constituency.
The draft voters list for Bengal in connection with the SIR process was published on December 16. Over 58 lakhs names have been missing from the list citing them as missing, absent, dead or duplicate. A total of 31,38,374 voters have not been mapped with the voter lists of 2000 and 2002 and will be summoned for hearings, which have begun today and will continue until 7 February 2026.
