The Election Commission on September 18 told the Supreme Court that 22.21 lakh electors whose names were deleted in Bengal have filed appeals seeking their inclusion in the electoral rolls.That is more than three times the seven-lakh figure cited by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari which The Wire had reported on early in August. It represents about 82% of the 27.16 lakh electors deleted following the special intensive revision’s adjudication process. The disclosure assumes particular significance because Adhikari had used the seven-lakh figure not simply as a statistic about the appeal process, but while publicly raising questions about the citizenship claims of those he said had not appealed.At the launch of the Census exercise on August 1, Adhikari said, “Of the 27 lakh names deleted after adjudication, only 7 lakh have filed appeals. It remains to be seen whether those who did not claim voter status will now claim citizenship.”He also said that around 20 lakh people had not responded and “themselves haven’t claimed to be voters”. Five days later, The Telegraph reported a similar number, quoting a senior state government official as saying that a compilation of reports received from the districts showed that only around seven lakhs of the 27 lakh deleted electors had approached the tribunals. According to the official quoted in that report, the figure amounted to roughly 26% of those deleted and the state government did not know why the remaining 20 lakh had not appealed. The ECI, in either of the instances, did not issue a correction or clarification of any kind. Yet, its latest figures present a markedly different picture.In counter affidavits filed by Secretary Sujeet Kumar Mishra in response to petitions brought by West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee SIR Committee Chairperson Prasenjit Bose and Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien, the Commission detailed information on claims, objections and tribunal cases. Bose had specifically asked the ECI to disclose not only the number of cases pending before the tribunals but also the number of appeals filed by deleted electors seeking inclusion and appeals seeking exclusion. The poll panel revealed that 22,21,118 appeals or nearly 58 % were made specifically by electors whose names had been deleted and who were seeking their inclusion in the electoral roll. This actual figure of over 22.21 lakh represents nearly 81.8 % of the 27.16 lakh total deleted electors. The official record also shows that another 16,10,311 appeals were filed by third-party objectors seeking the removal of previously included names. Each of those 16.1 lakh appeals names an elector who survived the revision, appears on the final roll published on February 28, 2026, and now faces a live challenge from another person to their presence on the lists. This number is 2.5% of the 6.45 crore electors on that roll.This is the first time the Commission has published the composition of the appeal pool. Its earlier disclosure, a 28-page reply under the Right to Information Act issued to Isha Khan Choudhury, MP for Dakshin Malda, on August 17, 2026, carried a footnote conceding that the appeals total included both appeals against inclusion and appeals against exclusion. But the Commission gave no split. The absence of that split has, until now, made it impossible to say how many removed electors had contested their removal.A deeper examination of the latest ECI submission in the Derek O’Brien matter provides new clarity on tribunal outcomes while highlighting severe operational backlogs. In its detailed district and constituency reports, the Commission disclosed that out of the appeals decided, 1,13,943 cases resulted in inclusion in the electoral roll, whereas 8,649 cases resulted in exclusion. This indicates that over 92% of decided tribunal appeals ended in inclusion or retention on the voter rolls. However, the filings still do not provide a precise breakdown of how many of these 1,13,943 inclusions were restorations of deleted electors versus rejections of objector petitions. The Commission does not state how many disposed cases were brought by deleted electors and how many were brought by objectors, nor does it specify how many tribunal decisions restored a name to the electoral roll and how many decided on removals.The outer limit of restorations can be gauged from the earlier RTI response by the Commission recording 75,443 restorations of all kinds as of August 7, 2026, which represents 3.40% of the 22,21,118 deleted electors who appealed.As the municipal elections approach, the Election Commission has informed the Supreme Court of its willingness to expand the number of appellate tribunals from 19 to 42, aligning them with the parliamentary constituencies in the state. The Commission also proposed enabling location-agnostic video conferencing to allow judicial officers to conduct virtual hearings remotely.Congress’s Prasenjit Bose has said the chief minister owes an apology, should withdraw the assertion built on the “seven lakh figure,” and should refrain from statements casting doubt on the citizenship of electors merely because they did not appeal within the tribunal process.For our full coverage on the SIR and the issues it has brought to citizens, click here.