The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in West Bengal has begun preparations for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, scheduled to begin after Lakshmi Puja on October 6, according to sources. The exercise will be part of a nationwide drive by the Election Commission of India.
As part of the groundwork, matching of data from the 2002 SIR with the January 2025 voters list in Bengal will be completed by tomorrow, sources in the CEO's office confirmed.
Meanwhile, the CEO's office has already initiated early preparations for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections. On Thursday, the office launched the Election Manpower Management System (EMMS) 2.0 portal, which will be used to streamline the recruitment and management of polling personnel.
Beginning Friday, the EMMS 2.0 portal will be used to prepare a database of polling staff across nearly 32,000 offices in the state. With an expected increase of about 14,000 additional polling booths, officials anticipate a significant shortage of Booth Level Officers (BLOs).
To address this challenge, several election workers have already been designated as BLOs. The CEO's office has directed all 32,000 government offices to upload their employee details into the EMMS 2.0 portal. Failure to comply will invite strict action under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the highest-ranking official in each office will be held responsible.
The EMMS 2.0 portal will act as a digital platform for district administrations to manage electoral manpower, including recruitment, transfers, editing, and verification of employees. It will allow authorities to maintain updated records of election-related personnel, as well as add new staff or remove those who have retired or been transferred for specific reasons. This information will be maintained by both district-level and block-level cells.
Ahead of the SIR exercise, the Election Commission aims to build a comprehensive database of electoral staff and accurately track the total number of personnel available in the state.
The EMMS 2.0 portal has been developed as a joint initiative between the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal. The portal was inaugurated by NIC Joint Directors Saikat Narayan Bhattacharya and Shamik Kumar Bhattacharya, along with Additional Chief Electoral Officer Arindam Niyogi and Deputy CEO Sumanta Ray.
It now remains to be seen how efficiently the Election Commission can utilise the EMMS 2.0 platform to prepare a robust list of election workers ahead of the 2026 polls.
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