West Bengal to add 14,000 polling booths next year’s Assembly polls

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, on Friday (August 29, 2025) held a meeting with representatives of all major political parties of the State, where the representatives were informed about rearrangement of polling booths. As per the new arrangement a polling booth will have only 1200 voters instead of 1500 voters who were enlisted at a polling booth earlier. This will lead to an additional 14,000 polling booths in the State.

CEO Manoj Agarwal said that political parties can submit written objections and complaints regarding the new arrangement of additional polling booths till September 8.

Trinamool Congress leader and State’s Minister Aroop Biswas participated in the meeting on behalf of the State’s ruling party. “We have no objection to the rearrangement of booths. We have said that the additional booths should be in the same polling station. Voters should not have to go two kilometers away to vote,” Mr. Biswas said.

Emphasising that the Election Commission of India (ECI) should be impartial and not serve any interest of any political party, the Minister said that his party is against Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal. “There was no agenda on SIR in the meeting today. There will be no SIR in West Bengal,” he said. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee have threatened protests if there are any attempts to start SIR in West Bengal.

The number of polling booths in the state is about 80,661. If 13,816 booths are added to this, the total number of booths will be 94,497. This will not pose a challenge to the ruling party but also to the Opposition parties as they will have to put booth agents at every polling booth in the State. Elections to West Bengal Legislative Assembly are scheduled in 2026.

BJP leader Shishir Bajoria who participated in the meeting raised questions on claims made by DEO (District Election Officers) that political parties have not raised questions on the rearrangement of polling booths. 

 Mr. Bajoria alleged that the names of the BLO ( Booth Level Officers) appointments were brought from the Trinamool Congress office. Congress representatives Ashutosh Chatterjee, Khwaja Ahmed, Mrinal Naskar who participated in the meeting joined the all-party meeting with ‘No Political SIR’ posters and placards. From the CPI(M) Samik Lahiri participated in the meeting.