TMC team meets Bengal CEO, urges easing of hearing burden
Times of India | 24 December 2025
Kolkata: TMC on Tuesday urged the EC to introduce online hearings and electronic document submission, for easing voters of the SIR hearing burden. It also urged the election panel to make hearings simpler for senior citizens, migrant workers, daily wage earners, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. The party also gave the EC a list of nine persons who are alive but have been shown as dead in the draft list.
In a deputation to the EC, the party asked whether it was "humanly possible" to summon all voters to one location within an assembly segment. "Available estimates suggest that over 50,000 electors may be required to appear for hearings at the ERO office, with the entire process being handled by just 10 AEROs. This would effectively require each AERO to conduct more than 160 hearings per day," the party wrote to the EC.
The party said, "An assembly segment often spans a radius of 15 to 20 km. A central point for hearing will impose severe logistical, economic, and physical hardship for voters dependent on agriculture, daily wages, or informal employment. Compulsory travel to distant locations will result in loss of income, disruption of livelihoods, and avoidable distress." The party sought clarity on summoning voters for hearing for logical discrepancies. "Summoning bona fide electors on vague or unexplained grounds implicitly casts doubt on their citizenship and electoral legitimacy," the party said.
Speaking outside the CEO office, state finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya said the CEO must ensure that people do not face inconvenience, questioning how residents of remote areas would travel if hearing centres were located far away. She warned that if the CEO proceeded with the deletion of 2 crore names from the electoral rolls by acting on "someone else's instructions", TMC would protest more strongly. Minister Shashi Panja and Barrackpore MP Partha Bhowmik were also part of the delegation.
CEO Manoj Agarwal said, "They (the TMC delegation) have given me the 9 names of alive voters whose names have been listed in the deceased voters' list. We will conduct an enquiry into this allegation. If it is found true, the concerned BLO will face action." On TMC's demand to conduct hearings in the offices of the panchayat and municipality for the convenience of voters, a senior EC official said that the offices of BDO/SDO/DM had been chosen because of proper availability of manpower, security and data connectivity.
The delegation also demanded that EC discloses the submission of all online forms for new voters' applications, claims and objections, and correction of entries. Responding to this, the official said, "The BLO will put the notices of all forms submitted, including online applications, at the camps."