Kolkata: A three-member Election Commission of India team arrived in Kolkata Wednesday to review the progress of the ongoing first phase of the three-stage Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
The members — Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti, Deputy Secretary Abhinav Agarwal, and Principal Secretary SB Joshi — will stay in the state till November 8.
The central ECI delegation will review the revision progress in the three districts in the northern sector of West Bengal, namely Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, and Cooch Behar. They will be accompanied by the chief electoral officer (CEO), West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, and a technical team.
Meanwhile, the CEO’s office has already put in place all the arrangements to monitor whether the booth-level officers (BLOs) are diligently attending to the calls and grievances of the voters.
The app, “Book a Call with BLO,” has already become active, and the CEO’s office has decided to monitor the activities on the said app constantly.
“In case any BLO does not attend the call of a voter or call back to the voter concerned for a long time, the CEO’s office will alert the office of the district election officer concerned, and the latter will in turn knock the BLO concerned reminding him or her to address the unattended calls,” said an insiders from the CEO’s office.
In the first stage of SIR, which has already started from Tuesday, the BLOs will reach every doorstep with the enumeration forms and collect the details of the voters concerned. At the end of the first phase, the draft voters’ list in the state will be announced.
Then, in the second stage, any political party or individual voter will be able to register their complaints on the draft list, which will be addressed by the ECI.
Then, in the third and final stage, the EROs will address the complaints received from individual political parties or individual voters, following which the final voters’ list will be published.
The entire process is expected to be completed by March 2026. The last time the SIR was conducted in West Bengal was in 2002.
