New feature toidentifyduplicate voters launched on BLO apps in West Bengal

The Election Commission of India on Monday (December 8), started a duplicate voter identification process, where a new feature was added to the Booth Level Officer’s application in West Bengal to identify and verify duplicate voters. Five new electoral observers have been appointed for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the State to oversee the entire process. 

“There are many duplicate electors in many places across the State. To identify them, the officials have added this feature to the BLO app. Though names and the father’s name of two voters can be an exact match, the other specifications cannot be the same, like address and date of birth. Cross-checking this information will help BLOs identify the duplicate voters,” Swapan Mondal, general secretary of Votekormi and BLO Aikya Mancha, West Bengal State Committee, told The Hindu on Monday. 

BLOs further added that many of them have been sent lists of voters with the same names to recheck details and verify if any of them are duplicate voters.

The West Bengal CEO office has identified over 56.38 lakh “dead, duplicate, untraceable and shifted” in the State. The number of duplicate, dead, and untraceable voters is based on the enumeration forms that were distributed and collected, of which over 99.64% forms have already been digitised in the State, according to sources in the Chief Electoral Officer’s office in West Bengal. 

According to current data shared by sources at the CEO office, the voter list includes around 24 lakh dead voters, 10.95 lakh untraceable voters, 19.65 lakh shifted voters, 1.32 lakh duplicates, and 0.48 lakh others. 

Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari on Monday accused that in many areas, IPAC (political consultancy firm) staff filled up forms on behalf of BLOs. “That is why the number of dead and shifted voters are increasing rapidly. If the ECI functions with honesty, these IPAC people will be caught and penalised,” Mr Adhikari further added. He also claimed that many BLOs do not have any idea who filled up their forms and changed the names of people and their family members. 

In a related development, the ECI has also added five senior IAS officers as Special Roll Observers (SRO) in the State along with the 12 others they appointed last week. 

SROs appointed by the ECI on Monday include Kumar Ravi Kant Singh from the Ministry of Defence for the Presidency Division, Niraj Kumar Bansod from the Ministry of Home Affairs for the Medinipur Division, and Krishna Kumar Nirala from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting for the Burdwan Division. Alok Tiwari from the Department of Economic Affairs was assigned to the Malda Division, while Pankaj Yadav from the Department of Rural Development will oversee the Jalpaiguri Division. 

The hiring of the five additional observers comes days after retired IAS officer Subrata Gupta was appointed as another ‘Special Roll Observer’ on November 28. 

The draft electoral rolls will be published on December 16, and the final voter lists are set to be published on February 14, 2026. The State Assembly elections are set to be held in mid-2026.