Kamalika Sengupta
In West Bengal, the names of not just one or two but 10 lakh people may be missing from the voter list. The report received by the Election Commission from the BLO during the Special Intensive Revision of the SIR i.e. Voter List has created a stir. According to information received by StuffUnknownfrom Election Commission sources, preliminary figures show that around 6 to 6.5 lakh names in the voter list are the names of people who have died years ago. The remaining names are of voters who are duplicate, shifted to another area or cannot be traced. It is clear that they will be removed from the voter list.
How did 10 lakh names appear?
- Election Commission sources said that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in the state reported many surprising things during the process of door-to-door distribution and collection of forms. According to the ground report of BLO, the things that came to light are shocking.
- 6 to 6.5 lakh voters were found dead
- A large number of duplicate voters were found
- Many voters had permanently shifted to another place
- Some voters were not traced, meaning the house itself was found empty.
For this reason, these names have been put in the category of uncollectible i.e. those which could not be traced during SIR. These are those voters from whom the reason for not receiving the form is either death, house being vacant, duplicate entry or permanent shift.
Will these names be removed from now on?
No. According to Election Commission sources, this is just a possible list. If someone comes to claim within the stipulated time, that is, a family comes and tells that a particular voter is alive and the name is correct, then that name will be added back. But it is also true that if no claim is made, or documents are not found, then these 10 lakh names are considered to be removed from the draft list.
How big is this campaign in Bengal?
Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Aggarwal said that this time the SIR process is being done on a large scale in Bengal. 7.64 crore forms have been distributed across the state. More than 80,600 BLOs have been installed. 8,000 supervisors and 3,000 assistant electoral registration officers have been deployed. 294 Electoral Registration Officers are engaged in this campaign. It can be estimated from these figures that this is one of the biggest voter-verification drives in the state. According to EC officials, forms have been distributed to more than 99.75% voters. Meaning, the form has reached almost every house of the 7.66 crore voters. Till now 3.77 crore forms have been uploaded online. This is 49.26% of the total.
What was said on the death of BLO?
When asked about complaints of BLOs such as heavy workload, West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Aggarwal said, we are receiving complaints that BLOs are under a lot of pressure and some are even falling ill. We have asked the District Magistrates to help the BLOs. It is also being reported that some BLOs have died. We have asked the DMs of four districts to send the police report and postmortem report. These reports will be received in a day or two, only after which we will be able to take any action. On the basis of these reports, we will be able to tell the Election Commission whether the BLO died while on duty due to SIR or not…
