After official’s suspension, Bengal CEO stresses sanctity & confidentiality of poll process
Times of India | 18 May 2025
Kolkata: Bengal's chief electoral officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal held a meeting with systems managers and data entry operators on Saturday to make electoral rolls error-free and maintain confidentiality of the EC portal.The meeting comes a day after the CEO suspended an assistant systems manager of Kakdwip subdivision in South 24 Parganas for illegally disposing of applications related to forms 6, 7 and 8 by using his mobile number.Arun Gorain used his phone number to access the login credentials of the assistant electoral registration officer. He has been suspended on charges of gross misconduct.Form 6 is for the inclusion of names, form 7 is used for objecting to inclusion or seeking deletion of names in the electoral rolls and form 8 is used for correction of entries and for replacement of EPIC.Agarwal stressed the transparency in IT applications as a safeguard of the poll process, saying that action would be initiated against anyone found guilty of any malpractice.The CEO said they had spotted 32,000 voters who had names both in Bengal and other states. After a probe, it was found that 23,000 voters were willing to have their names in the electoral rolls in Bengal. Consequently, 7,800 names were deleted, Agrwal said.The participants at Saturday's meet were also trained on legal provisions of the Representation of the People Act.