Bengal SIR: Progeny mapping identifies doubtful data for around 30 lakh voters
Kolkata: With the focus on minute progeny mapping being initiated as directed by the Election Commission of India last week, the ECI officials have already identified doubtful data for around 30 lakh voters.
The names of all these 30 lakh odd voters, in whose cases doubtful data has been noticed by the ECI, were not in the voters’ list for 2002. These voters applied for registration in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by virtue of their parents’ names in the 2002 list.
“Progeny” mapping is done to detect whether the names of the parents of a voter concerned in the current voters’ list match the list of 2002, the last time when the SIR was conducted in West Bengal.
An insider from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, said that the majority of the cases where doubtful voters’ data has come to the notice of the ECI is in relation to mismatch of the names of the parents in the voters’ list of 2002 with that of the current voters’ list as on October 27, 2025.
There had also been instances of age mismatch of the parents in the two lists. At the same time, a CEO’s office insider added, there had been mismatches in the photos of the parents printed in the enumeration forms in the SIR with the new photos provided by the voters in the list.
In most cases, such mismatches have been the case with deceased parents.
“Precisely, that is besides focusing on minute ‘progeny mapping,’ the commission, last week, had given fresh instructions to the electoral officers at different levels engaged in the revision exercise in West Bengal regarding preparation of the separate list of the deceased voters in the state. The electoral officers have been directed to re-check the data of those who have already been identified as the deceased voters in the process of digitisation and mapping of the collected and duly filled enumeration forms with the list for 2002,” the CEO’s office insider said.
The total number of voters as per the list as of October 27, 2025, is 7,66,37,529. The SIR exercise started on November 4. The draft voters’ list will be published on December 16. The final voters’ list will be published on February 14.
Soon after that, the ECI is expected to announce polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in the state scheduled next year.