Overview
The Election Commission (EC) has launched a special door‑to‑door enrolment drive using Form 6. The drive will not cover more than 22.21 lakh voters in West Bengal whose cases are still before the Appellate Tribunals. This creates two parallel routes for re‑enrolment, potentially leaving a large section of voters disenfranchised.
Key Developments
- EC’s door‑to‑door drive will re‑check the BLOs’ ASDD list (Absent/Shifted/Dead/Duplicate) and enrol eligible voters through Form 6.
- Voters whose cases are already before the tribunals will continue to wait for adjudication; the EC has not merged these two processes.
- The EC has instructed that Form 6 applications be cleared within one to two months, whereas tribunal appeals could take several years.
- As of the Supreme Court affidavit, 22.21 lakh appeals are pending in West Bengal.
- Only 136 names were added to the supplementary list before the state assembly elections began on 23 April 2026.
Important Facts
- During the enumeration phase, 31.68 lakh voters were marked “unmapped” (cannot be linked to the 2002 roll) and 13.6 million flagged for “logical discrepancy”.
- The final roll published on 28 February 2026 still had about 60 lakh unresolved cases.
- The ASDD list contained 58.20 lakh names excluded from the draft roll of 16 December 2025: 24.16 lakh dead, 32.65 lakh shifted/absent, and 1.38 lakh duplicates.
- On 1 October 2026, the EC sent a letter to all State CEOs directing BLOs to compare the current roll with the pre‑SIR roll, identify missing electors, and enrol them via Form 6 after a door‑to‑door verification.
- The West Bengal Congress warns that the timing of the drive, just before the 6 October 2026 bye‑elections in Nandigram and Rejinagar, could deny voting rights to thousands of pending appellants.
Exam Relevance
Understanding the dual enrolment pathways highlights the challenges of electoral administration, a core topic in GS‑2 (Polity). The case illustrates:
- How the Supreme Court intervenes in electoral roll disputes.
- The role of the ERO in processing Form 6 applications.
- The importance of accurate voter lists for the legitimacy of elections, a frequent discussion point in essay and answer‑writing sections.
Way Forward
Stakeholders have suggested two possible solutions:
- Provisionally restore all 22.21 lakh pending appellants to the roll until their cases are finally decided.
- Convert every pending tribunal appeal into a Form 6 application addressed to the concerned ERO, thereby unifying the enrolment process.
Both options aim to prevent disenfranchisement ahead of the upcoming elections and to streamline the electoral roll management system.