The Election Commission published West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls on Tuesday, following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, which led to the deletion of over 58 lakh voters due to reasons such as death and migration. After this exclusion, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, Manoj Agarwal, stated that around 1.67 crore voters are now under scanner, though the number is subject to change.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Agarwal said that the Booth Level Officers have been instructed to rectify discrepancies before the hearings begin. The officer added that the BLOs will be held responsible for any incorrect inputs after this exercise.
According to sources, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has introduced three new options in the BLO application for this purpose. Explaining the same, a senior ECI officer said, “The BLOs will split the individuals with logical discrepancies into three groups. One is ‘edit’, for correcting wrongfully updated information. Second is ‘not to be called in hearing’ for those whose issues are resolved before the hearings begin. The third and last is the ‘hearing’ option. Even after scrutiny, individuals who have logical discrepancies or no relation with 2002 SIR, they will be called for hearing.”
The senior officer added, “Even after this exercise, in case any wrong input is found, the concerned BLO would be held responsible.”
According to the EC, data analysis revealed several discrepancies, such as 2,364,030 electors who listed the father’s name, who have more than six children.
Around 8,501,486 had a mismatch with their father’s names.
Around 1,076,981 electors with less than 15 years’ age difference with parents and 859,275 with over 50 years’ age difference with parents. Additionally, 311,811 electors had less than 40 years’ age difference with their grandparents. The data also showed 1,939,250 electors enrolling after 45 years of age and 1,298,340 with gender mismatches.
Agarwal said, “The hearings will start within seven days for those who have no mapping with the 2002 SIR, while others with logical discrepancies will be studied. Some electors fall in multiple categories of discrepancies. So, the unique number of logical discrepancies is 1.36 crore and no mapping numbers stand at 31 lakh, totalling at 1.67 crore. But after analysis, the numbers could change.”
The CEO asserted, “There are some problems in the data. We will correct them very soon. Action will be taken against those responsible for major wrongdoing.”
“Even if one valid voter’s name is left out, strict action will be taken against the official concerned. If there is any allegation that a valid voter’s name has been omitted or if it is noticed that the name of an invalid voter or someone enrolled in excluded voters’ list has been deliberately included in the draft list… in both cases, strict action will be taken against such persons,” he said.
The CEO assured, “If anyone misses a hearing date or time, they don’t need to worry. They will be given another hearing slot.”
Discussing their efforts to speed up the hearings, Agarwal said, “We have already urged the ECI to give permission to AEROs (Assistant Electoral Registration Officers) to dispose of the hearings along with EROs (Electoral Registration Officers) in each assembly constituency. We have also asked if we can recruit additional AERO for the hearings.”