Ahead of Vidhan Sabha election, infiltration-prone West Bengal witnesses spike in new voter registration in bordering districts: Details
The bordering districts of infilitration-prone West Bengal have witnessed a sharp increase in new voter registrations ahead of the upcoming 2026 Vidhan Sabha elections, reported The Economic Times.
The development was confirmed by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in West Bengal.
In the past 3 months, new voter registration through Form-6 has increased 9 times in Muslim-dominated Malda and Murshidabad, Nadia, Uttar Dinajpur, Cooch Behar, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas.
“The jump is as high as nine-fold, from around 100 per assembly constituency to nearly 900 a month,” the report stated.
Interestingly, all the aforementioned districts share a border with Bangladesh. The BJP in West Bengal has raised alarms about increasing infiltration and demographic changes in the bordering districts of the State for a long time.
ECI directs West Bengal govt to take action against officers who added fake voters to electoral rolls
Earlier this month, the Election Commission of India (ECI) suspended four election officials in West Bengal, who reportedly allowed fake voter applications to be registered by misusing their authority.
Their actions were exposed during a sample checking of voter application forms (Form 6) for routine updates to the electoral roll by the West Bengal Election Commission.
Two Electoral Registration Offices (EROs), namely Debottam Dutta Choudhary and Biplab Sarkar and two Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs), namely Tathagata Mondal and Sudipta Das, were suspended by the ECI with immediate effect.
Besides, the ECI also directed an FIR to be lodged against the casual Data Entry Operator, Surojit Haldar.
The ECI has also ordered disciplinary proceedings against the officers without delay. The Commission said that the actions of the officers amount to criminal misconduct and, therefore, also ordered the filing of FIRs against all four officials.
Later, it gave a 7-day deadline to take action against state election officials accused of adding fake voters to the voter list.
Large-scale infiltration in West Bengal
West Bengal is said to be among the states with the highest numbers of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. In the last three years, 2688 Bangladeshi nationals were apprehended and sent back to Bangladesh.
The claims were further strengthened by a recently published research paper, which revealed that West Bengal may include around one crore excess voters, recording an inflation of whopping 13.69%.
The research paper tiled: “Electoral Roll Inflation in West Bengal: A Demographic Reconstruction of Legitimate Voter Counts (2024)”; is authored by Dr. Milan Kumar, Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Visakhapatnam and Dr. Vidhu Shekhar, Assistant Professor at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta.
Published on 7th August 2025, the paper relies on official data from electoral rolls, census, and civil registration systems to estimate the surviving voters from the 2004 base roll, additions through new cohorts (1986-2006 births), and adjustments for net permanent migration.
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