West Bengal, among 12 states and UTs where voter list revision will be held in second phase, announces EC

Kumar was quoted as saying by the media, "The voter list of all those states where SIR will be done will be frozen at 12 am tonight."

He further said: "All voters on that list will be given Unique Enumeration Forms by the BLOs. These Enumeration Forms will have all the necessary details from the current voter list," he said.

He said: "The voter list of the SIR from 2002 to 2004 will be available to be seen on http://voters.eci.gov.in by anyone and they can do the matching by themselves."

The SIR has already been conducted in Bihar, which is going to polls in November.

The last SIR was conducted about two decades ago.

Opposition to SIR

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has alleged SIR is a conspiracy to deprive citizens of their voting rights, an allegation almost all opposition parties are levelling against the BJP.

Stalin claimed a similar "injustice" was also evident in Bihar, where SIR was conducted but not without the matter entering the Supreme Court, which had directed the ECI to accept Aadhaar Card as an ID for the process.

In West Bengal, where BJP is aiming to come to power desperately in 2026, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has strongly opposed SIR and cleared that the ruling party won't allow any "valid voter's name" to be deleted from the list.

Though West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had initially thundered that she won't allow SIR to be held in the state, later she toned down and said her party won't allow any genuine citizen to be deprived of his/her voting rights.