KOLKATA: UIDAI officials have informed the Election Commission that around 34 lakh Aadhaar card holders have been found dead in West Bengal since the introduction of the identity card in January 2009. UIDAI officials also told the Election Commission that there are around 13 lakh people in the state who never had an Aadhaar card, but have died.
This information was shared during a meeting between UIDAI officials and the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal, which was held in view of the ongoing enumeration exercise for revision of electoral rolls. The meeting came after the Election Commission’s directive asking all state CEOs to coordinate with Aadhaar authorities to verify voter data and identify discrepancies.
“The Election Commission has received several complaints about deceased voters, absent voters and double names in the electoral rolls. The UIDAI data on deceased citizens is expected to help us detect and remove such entries from the electoral rolls,” a senior official from the CEO’s office said on Wednesday.
He said that after the enumeration phase and the publication of draft lists on December 9, if applicants submit forms with names removed from the Aadhaar database, they may be summoned by the concerned electoral registration officer for verification. Election officials said they are also collecting information from banks as Aadhaar is linked to most accounts.
“Banks have provided data about accounts where KYC updates have not been completed for years, which helps in identifying deceased persons whose names are still in the electoral rolls.”
The SIR process is currently underway in West Bengal to root out deceased and fake voters, the official said. Booth level officers are distributing enumeration forms based on the 2025 electoral rolls and verifying them by going door to door and later mapping the data given by the applicants in those forms with the electoral rolls of 2002, when this exercise was last conducted.
According to the information received from the CEO's office, more than 6.98 crore (91.19 per cent) enumeration forms have been distributed in the state till 8 pm on Wednesday. Officials said that presence of ghost, deceased or duplicate voters in the draft list may lead to disciplinary action against the responsible BLOs.