Bengal Election Commission misses Supreme Court deadline on voter list
The Election Commission and the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer's (CEO) office didn't meet the Supreme Court's deadline to publicly display names of 94,49,132 voters with logical discrepancies and 31,68,426 unmapped voters by Saturday, January 24, 2026.
BLOs couldn't access the software needed to print or show these lists, with officials saying the software was received late and many BLOs were occupied with court hearings.
Why does it matter?
Without public lists, people can't check if their names are flagged or submit proof to fix mistakes—like mismatched names or age errors.
This raises the risk that legit voters might get left out, especially given software malfunctions and the sensitivity of the matching algorithm that flags spelling or onomastic variations.
The Supreme Court has criticized the delay, and if things aren't sorted before final rolls are due on February 14, a lot of folks could miss out on voting in upcoming elections.