Kolkata: Questions over transparency in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal have come under scrutiny after an investigation by Alt News highlighted the inaccessibility of voter data and its implications.
The report notes that electoral rolls were released as non-searchable, scanned PDFs, making analysis difficult. Despite the Election Commission maintaining a Machine Readable Database (MRD)—from which the rolls were generated—the data was not shared in a structured format. The investigation argues that this inaccessibility reflects intent, as the existence of MRD indicates the Commission had the capacity to release
usable datasets. Millennium Post, however could not verify the mentioned report or its investigation.
Responding to concerns, the Election Commission said machine-readable data could enable misuse, including large-scale data mining and privacy violations, and that image-based PDFs help prevent tampering. However, the report counters that this justification is weak, noting that voter data has historically been publicly accessible and that withholding structured data limits transparency without necessarily enhancing privacy.
Focusing on two Assembly Constituencies- Bhowanipore and Ballygunge- the investigation reconstructed datasets to analyse “logical discrepancy” flags. In these seats, Muslims constitute around 39.5 per cent of the electorate, but account for approximately 66.5 per cent of voters marked under adjudication. In Bhowanipore alone, Muslims form 21.9 per cent of voters, yet make up 51.8 per cent of flagged cases, suggesting they are over three times more likely to be flagged compared to others.
The findings indicate that a large number of voters remain “under adjudication,” leaving their electoral status uncertain ahead of the elections, while also pointing to disproportionate impacts across communities. Concluding, the report notes that Alt News had to spend $144 to convert the data into a readable format, underscoring an additional barrier to accessing public electoral information.