EC Halts Hearings After ‘Unmapped Voters’ Error Sparks Political Row In Bengal

A major controversy has erupted in West Bengal after the Election Commission flagged over 30 lakh voters as “unmapped” during the first phase of the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. These voters were asked to attend hearings as their names could not be traced to the 2002 voter list. However, it has now emerged that thousands of these voters were in fact listed in the 2002 records and were wrongly marked unmapped due to technical errors while converting old PDF rolls into CSV format. The Chief Electoral Officer has halted hearings for such voters and ordered fresh verification through district officials and field visits by BLOs. The Trinamool Congress has alleged a conspiracy, while the BJP has dismissed the charges as baseless, intensifying the political battle over voter list revision.