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West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. File. | Photo Credit: ANI

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said on Friday (May 29, 2026) that the West Bengal Census 2027 would be held between August 1 and end of February 2028 next year.

Emphasising that the exercise had nothing to do with politics, the Chief Minister urged people in the State to participate in the process. He stressed that the census was a constitutional obligation.

“The Government of India sent a letter to the previous West Bengal government on May 16, 2025, calling on it to start the census. I will not politicise the issue, but I will say that it is unfortunate that the previous State government did not respond,” Mr. Adhikari said.

The Chief Minister said that while the rest of the country had moved far ahead in the conduct of the census, West Bengal needs to catch up. Mr. Adhikari also referred to the alleged demographic changes in parts of the state, attributing it to cross-border infiltration.

“We have a 600-kilometre unfenced border with Bangladesh. As the previous state government did not hand over land to the BSF, fencing could not be done, which led to infiltration and changes in the demographic composition of parts of West Bengal,” he said.

Mr. Adhikari said that once census data is available, it would be possible to study the demographic changes. He made a mention of the flight of Bangladeshi nationals from the country.

He said accurate census data was essential for governance and planning and added that approval for the census exercise was among the first decisions taken by the Bharatiya Janata Party government on May 11, 2026.

Rashmi Kamal, IAS officer of the 2006 batch, is the Census Director of West Bengal. Mr. Adhikari said that data will be collected from August 1 to August 15 and it will be the first digital census, where there is scope for self-enumeration. The Chief Minister on Friday released two toll-free helpline numbers for census feedback and complaints.

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