Kolkata: The progress in poll preparations in two Bangladesh-bordering districts in West Bengal for the forthcoming Assembly polls has not been satisfactory so far, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has communicated to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).
These two districts are South 24 Parganas in South Bengal and Cooch Behar in North Bengal.
Sources in the CEO’s office said that last week, the ECI’s top brass at its headquarters in New Delhi had a virtual meeting with the electoral officers up to the district-level as well as with senior bureaucrats and police officers in the state and took inputs from them about the poll-preparedness in different districts in the state.
“After examining the inputs received last week, the ECI identified the prevailing lapses in poll-preparedness. Although Wednesday was a holiday because of the Holi festival, the deputy election commissioner, Gyanesh Bharati, had a brief virtual meeting with the electoral officers of West Bengal, including the district magistrates, who are also the district electoral officers, on Wednesday night. In that meeting, Bharati expressed dissatisfaction over the progress in poll preparedness in South 24 Parganas and Cooch Behar,” said a CEO’s office insider.
Bharati is likely to have another round of virtual meetings with the electoral officers, including the district electoral officers, on Thursday, and in that meeting, he is likely to give a briefing on the steps necessary to expedite the poll-preparedness process.
As per the schedule, the full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) will arrive in West Bengal on the night of March 8. For the next two days, that is on March 9 and March 10, the full bench will have several rounds of marathon meetings to review the ongoing judicial adjudication of the voters’ documents classified under the logical discrepancy category, and on the poll preparations.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) leader and workers staged a night-long sit-in demonstration in front of the CEO’s office in central Kolkata since late Wednesday evening over the demand that the polling dates in West Bengal should not be announced by the Commission unless the process of judicial adjudication is completed and the retention of names of all genuine voters in the list is ensured.
The sit-in demonstration continued on Thursday morning, and the CPI(M) leaders said the protest will continue as long as the CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, meets them.
The final voter’s list was published on February 28, minus those names which were referred for judicial adjudication. Supplementary lists will be published in due course as per the progress of the judicial adjudication.
