Bengal SIR: Uncertainty continues over extension of voter list hearing deadline

Kolkata: With a crucial hearing at the Supreme Court on the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal on Monday, uncertainty is persisting over the extension of the deadline for hearing on the claims and objections to the draft voters’ list in the state, hours after the deadline expired at 12 midnight of February 7.

Top officials from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, remained at their respective offices till late at night both on Saturday and Sunday, hoping for the intimation of the extension of the deadline from the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s headquarters in New Delhi. However, the intimation on this count did not arrive.

The CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, submitted a formal request for a seven-day extension of the deadline on February 6. As of now, the final voter’s list is scheduled to be published on February 14. Now it is to be seen whether that date will also be postponed or not, depending on the period of extension of the deadline for the claims and objections on the draft voters’ list.

It will also have to be decided whether the extension will be only for 15 or so Assembly constituencies where the hearing process is yet to be completed, or whether it will be a general extension for the entire state. However, CEO’s office insiders said, that despite not getting the formal approval from the ECI’s headquarters over the extension of deadline for hearing session, the district magistrates, also the district electoral officers, in the districts concerned have been asked by the CEO’s office to continue with the hearing process in the respective districts where the hearing exercise is yet to be completed.

These Assembly constituencies are mainly scattered in three electoral districts of minority-dominated Malda, South 24 Parganas, and Kolkata (Uttar). “Although there was not much of a hearing in these three electoral districts on Sunday, the process will continue at its usual pace from Monday,” said a CEO’s office insider this morning.

Meanwhile, over 4,00,000 additional voters have already been identified as eligible for deletion from the final voters’ list because they failed to turn up for the hearing sessions on claims and objections to the draft voters’ list despite being served subsequent notices. Out of these, 4,00,000 voters who are heading for imminent deletion, 50,000 are “unmapped” voters, and around 3,50,000 are “logical discrepancy” cases.

Unmapped voters are those who were unable to establish a link with the 2002 voters’ list either through “self-mapping” or “progeny mapping”. On the other hand, “logical discrepancy” cases are those in which unusual family-tree data were detected during “progeny” mapping. When the draft voters’ list was published in December last year, a total of 58,20,899 voters were deleted after being identified as deceased, shifted, or duplicates. With the publication of the final voters’ list on February 14, the final number of deletions will become clear.