Minutes before midnight on Monday, the Election Commission published the first supplementary voters’ list after SIR adjudications in poll-bound West Bengal. However, the suspense over deleted names continued as the poll panel did not specify how many voters were dropped and how many were included in the rolls.
According to the EC, so far 29 lakh cases have been adjudicated by judicial officers, deputed by the Supreme Court, out of over 60 lakh pending cases. An EC source said, electors can check whether their names are there in the supplementary list or not by giving his or her Assembly constituency, booth number and other details on the ECI website or ECInet application.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal Manoj Agarwal declined to give the number of deletions. “We don’t know how many names have been deleted or how many names will be published.”
Agarwal said after the supplementary list is published, one can challenge the decision in appellate tribunals to be set up by the Calcutta High Court. But when an elector can challenge the decision or when the tribunals in all districts will be formed is yet to be announced. He said, “The State government will provide space for the tribunals and the High Court will give the go ahead on the arrangements. Only then the tribunals will be formed in all the 23 districts.”
The CEO said those districts which had lower pending cases, such as Kalimpong, Jhargram, Purulia, Bankura, all names have been adjudicated. The judicial officers who were engaged in those districts have been transferred to other areas which have a huge number of adjudication cases.
Ahead of the release of the supplementary list, Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Sujoy Pal convened an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss the law and order situation and to ensure safety of judges and judicial officers involved in the SIR process. Chief Secretary Dushyant Narial also met CEO Agarwal and Special Observer Subrata Gupta.
The CEO separately held another round of discussions with senior police officers. Sources said the focus of these discussions was on maintaining security and public order in the state ahead of the supplementary list’s publication.
A total of 705 judicial officers have been engaged in determining inclusion or exclusion of names in the supplementary lists.
During SIR, about 1.25 crore notices for hearings were sent to voters, citing discrepancies in the details filled in the enumeration forms. Later, the Supreme Court appointed judicial officers to review the eligibility of 60,06,675 electors, or 8.5% of the total electorate.
Official data accessed by The Indian Express showed that the highest number of cases pending adjudication were in Murshidabad district (11 lakh), followed by Malda (8.28 lakh), South 24 Parganas (5.22 lakh) and North 24 Parganas (5 lakh). Jhargram and Kalimpong had the least number of pending cases at 6,682 and 6,790, respectively.
The final electoral roll published on February 28 had 7.04 crore electors, including the names of 60.06 lakh voters who have been flagged for review by Supreme Court-appointed judicial officers. Till their names are cleared and published in supplementary lists, these electors will not be able to cast their votes.