EC Tells SC: 95% Voters In Tamil Nadu, 99% in Bengal Issued Forms

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has rejected allegations of mass voter exclusion in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, telling the Supreme Court that the claims made by the Opposition were "highly exaggerated."

In affidavits filed before the court, the Commission said that 95.65% of electors in Tamil Nadu and 99.77% in West Bengal had already been supplied with pre-filled enumeration forms. It added that 58.7% of these forms had been returned and digitised, while in West Bengal alone, 70.14% completed forms had been received, The Hindu reported.

The poll body dismissed assertions that up to 30% of voters in West Bengal had been left out of the rolls. "These statistics demonstrate that errors, under-inclusiveness and mass disenfranchisement claimed by the petitioner are highly exaggerated," the Commission stated.

The ECI also pointed to its legal authority under Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, which grants it discretionary powers to conduct special revisions of electoral rolls "in such a manner as it thinks fit." It noted that intensive revisions of a special nature had been carried out in several years, including 1952-53, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1966, 1983-84, 1987-89, 1992, 1993, 1995, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

In Tamil Nadu, the Commission recalled that the last special intensive revision was conducted in 2002 for 197 Assembly constituencies and again in 2005 for 37 constituencies, with reference dates of January 1, 2002 and January 1, 2025 respectively. It said that over the past two decades, large-scale additions and deletions had taken place in the rolls, driven by urbanisation and migration.

To ensure accuracy, the ECI said it had appointed 68,470 booth-level officers in Tamil Nadu, while national and state political parties had deployed 2,38,853 booth-level agents to monitor the process.