Kolkata: Eleven months after the special intensive revision (SIR) in West Bengal began removing names from its electoral rolls, the office of the state’s chief electoral officer (CEO) has now explicitly told at least one category of deleted voters that they can apply to get back on the list through Form 6.In a press note issued on Tuesday (October 6), the CEO’s office said that the list of voters left out during the SIR under the absent, shifted, dead or duplicate (ASDD) categories is available on its website and on the websites of the state’s 23 district electoral officers.“Any person in this list may submit Form 6 online or through BLO [booth-level officer] for inclusion of his/her name in the electoral roll,” the communique said.The note, numbered 70/CEO/PN/2026 and signed by additional CEO Arindam Niyogi, also said that anyone who has recently turned 18 can submit Form 6, either online or through a BLO.The note arrives as the Election Commission (EC) faces sustained accusations of mass disenfranchisement. Civic groups and opposition parties allege that legitimate voters were wrongly removed under the ASDD categories during the SIR. In Bengal, the process leading up to the draft roll alone removed more than 58.2 lakh names, and the total number of deletions by the end of the revision was close to 91 lakh.The note puts into effect the EC’s October 1 instruction for a special enrolment drive after the SIR. But it also leaves unanswered the more consequential question now facing Bengal: on whether the same Form 6 route is available to the 27 lakh electors who were marked “not eligible” after the judicial adjudication process.In a submission to the Supreme Court last month, the EC disclosed that 22.21 lakh of the 27.16 lakh deleted voters had filed appeals seeking restoration of their names – roughly 82% of those deleted through adjudication. A further 16.1 lakh appeals challenged voters whose names had been included, taking the total number of appeals to 38.31 lakh.When the SIR draft electoral roll was published on December 16, 2025, about 58.2 lakh names were left out under what the EC then described as the ASDD categories. Tuesday’s notice gets the category wrong. It expands ASDD as “Absentee, Shifted, Dead, Deleted” even though everyone on the list has been deleted.However, the notice makes it clear that an eligible person appearing on this list does not have to reopen the SIR proceedings. They can instead file a fresh Form 6 application under the system of continuous updation.The Form 6 used during the SIR had been accompanied online by a declaration requiring applicants to give information linking themselves or their parents to an earlier SIR electoral roll. The EC’s September 29 instructions restricted that declaration to the SIR period. In states such as West Bengal, where the SIR has ended, the ordinary statutory Form 6 under the 1960 Registration of Electors Rules is to be used.Tuesday’s notice similarly makes no reference to progeny mapping, linkage with the 2002 roll or any separate SIR declaration. Nor does it prescribe certification by neighbours. It simply says that an eligible person on the ASDD list may submit Form 6 online or through the BLO.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.