Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has expressed mixed reactions to the current phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal, particularly the hearings on claims and objections to the draft voters’ list.
While the Commission is happy with the progress of the hearing sessions, it has raised serious concerns over the slow uploading of supporting identity documents submitted by voters who appeared for the hearings.
Of the 1.62 crore voters summoned for hearing, including “unmapped voters” and “logical discrepancy” cases, the hearing process had been completed for around 1.42 crore voters. However, only 59 lakh voters’ documents have been uploaded so far, according to an official from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.
This slow pace of uploading had raised apprehensions about whether the scheduled February 14 deadline for publication of the final electoral roll can be met, ot it will have to be extended.
Officials in CEO office said one of the main reasons behind the slow pace of document uploading is the repeated violation of the ECI’s guideline to accept and upload only the listed identity-proof documents by a section of the electoral officers in the state, especially the electoral registration officers (EROs), assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs), and booth-level officers (BLOs).
The full bench of the Commission is holding a marathon virtual meeting Friday with the top officials from the CEO’s office and the Commission-appointed special roll observers to identify the lapses in conducting the revision exercise that might delay the scheduled process. The meeting started at 11:30 a.m. and is expected to continue for several hours.
Sources said that during the course of the meeting, the ECI is expected to give an ultimatum on accepting unlisted documents by electoral officers.
The ECI has already warned that EROs, AEROs, and BLOs found guilty of deliberate violations in accepting or uploading unapproved documents will face stringent disciplinary action.
Special roll observers have reportedly flagged several instances of such deliberate lapses and identified the officials involved.