The Election Commission of India began a fresh drive in West Bengal on Monday to find duplicate voters using a new feature in the Booth Level Officer (BLO) app. This helps identify voters with same names but different addresses or birth dates. Swapan Mondal, general secretary of Votekormi and BLO Aikya Mancha, said, "Though names and the father’s name of two voters can be an exact match, the other specifications cannot be the same, like address and date of birth. Cross-checking this information will help BLOs identify the duplicate voters." Many BLOs have received lists to verify if voters with identical names are indeed duplicates. The West Bengal CEO office noted over 56.38 lakh voters are dead, duplicate, untraceable, or shifted. The breakdown includes 24 lakh dead voters, 10.95 lakh untraceable, 19.65 lakh shifted, 1.32 lakh duplicates, and 0.48 lakh others. Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari alleged, "IPAC staff filled up forms on behalf of BLOs. That is why the number of dead and shifted voters are increasing rapidly. If the ECI functions with honesty, these IPAC people will be caught and penalised." He also claimed many BLOs are unaware who filled their forms or changed names. To strengthen monitoring, the ECI appointed five senior IAS officers as Special Roll Observers (SRO) for key divisions: Kumar Ravi Kant Singh (Presidency), Niraj Kumar Bansod (Medinipur), Krishna Kumar Nirala (Burdwan), Alok Tiwari (Malda), and Pankaj Yadav (Jalpaiguri). This follows the recent appointment of retired IAS Subrata Gupta as SRO. The draft electoral rolls will be published on December 16. Final voter lists will be released by February 14, 2026. The West Bengal Assembly elections are scheduled for mid-2026.