West Bengal is likely to get nearly 14,000 additional polling booths ahead of the 2026 assembly elections, with the Election Commission calling an all-party meeting on August 29 to discuss the proposed reorganisation of polling stations, officials said on Saturday. West Bengal currently has a little over 78,000 booths, spread across 294 assembly constituencies.
According to officials in the office of the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, polling stations with more than 1,200 electors will be bifurcated to ease voting.
“Booths with over 1,200 voters have already been identified. These will be split to ensure smooth polling. It is likely that the number of booths will go up by 14,000. We will be discussing the rationalisation of booths with the political parties during the all-party meet,” an official of the CEO office said.
With the addition of around 14,000 new ones, the total number is expected to touch 92,000. The all-party meeting, scheduled at the CEO’s office on August 29 at 3.30 pm, will seek political parties’ feedback on the revised booth allocation.
Political circles feel the expansion will pose organisational challenges, particularly for opposition parties, which may find it difficult to deploy booth-level agents (BLAs) across the increased number of stations.
Significantly, the development comes against the backdrop of disciplinary action against four officials in West Bengal for alleged lapses in the voter list revision.
The state government suspended two EROs and two assistant EROs from South 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur districts and initiated departmental proceedings, but stopped short of filing FIRs against them as directed by the EC.
The suspended officials — Debottam Dutta Chowdhury (ERO) and Tathagata Mandal (AERO) from Baruipur East, and Biplab Sarkar (ERO) and Sudipta Das (AERO) from Moyna — are accused of serious procedural violations, including sharing login credentials and compromising data security protocols.
The lapses allegedly led to irregularities in the voter rolls of Baruipur East and Moyna assembly constituencies. The EC is closely monitoring West Bengal’s compliance with its directives even as it pushes for the timely completion of the electoral roll revision and reorganisation of polling stations before the next major electoral exercise in the state.
