The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday criticised the role of District Electoral Officers (DEOs) for failing to identify booths in high-rise buildings across the state and asked them to identify them soon before the draft SIR role is published.
The last date for submission of SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of electoral rolls enumeration forms is on Thursday.
In a letter to the West Bengal Chief Electoral Office (CEO) Manoj Agarwal, Under Secretary of the EC, Shakti Sharma wrote: “No proposal of polling stations (in the high-rise buildings) has been received from your office so far. The Commission has taken a very serious view of the failure on the part of DEOs in performance of their statutory duty… The DEOs are liable for any lack of sufficiency of polling stations for electors in the above specified residential colonies.”
The EC had earlier issued guidelines to the DEOs to carry out an extensive survey for setting up new polling stations in “high rise/group housing societies/RWA colonies that have common facilitation area/community hall at ground floor within the premises and in slum dwelling clusters of urban areas”.
“This exercise has to be completed well before the draft publication of Electoral Rolls,” it added.
It is to be noted that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had last month written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, objecting to setting up polling stations inside private residential premises. “This proposal is deeply problematic. Polling stations have always been — and must remain — located in government or semi-government institutions, preferably within a 2 km radius, to ensure accessibility and neutrality. Private buildings are typically avoided for clear reasons: they compromise fairness, violate established norms, and create discriminatory distinctions between privileged residents and the general public — the haves and have-nots,” she wrote.
“Why is such a move being contemplated at all? Again, is this being done under pressure from a political party to advance their partisan interests?” she had stated, hinting at the decision being made to favour the BJP.