Kolkata: Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal Manoj Kumar Aggarwal made this call on Saturday Election Commission The ECI of India (ECI) has extended the final date of hearing under Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of State Voters List by seven days due to delay in completion of hearing, verification and data uploading.
People aware of the poll panel’s development said the list of constituencies where the hearing process is yet to be completed spans North Kolkata, South Kolkata, South 24 Parganas, Darjeeling, North 24 Parganas and Howrah districts. (Representational photo/PTI)February 7 was the last date for the hearing while the final voter list was scheduled to be published on February 14. Assembly elections in the state are likely to be held in April. “We have received some suggestions from some district election officials to extend the deadline. After collating and checking the information from the districts, we have requested the Election Commission of India to extend the last date (of the hearing) from February 7 to February 14,” the CEO told reporters.
Also read: Admin notified the revised SIR dates in Gautam Buddha Nagar”I have requested to extend the last date of hearing by seven days after receiving input from seven to eight district election officers. In some places, the hearing process is yet to be completed, while in others uploading, verification and final decision by ERO and ERO is still pending.”
A senior officer of the selection panel Calcutta He said as the last date of the hearing process was likely to be extended, the date of publication of the final voter list would also be extended by at least one week from February 14 to February 21.
Also read: ECI extends demand, objection window till March 6 for Uttar Pradesh voter listThe development comes a day after the ECI extended by a month the deadline for submitting claims and objections to the ongoing SIR of voter lists in Uttar Pradesh — the fourth extension given during the SIR process in India’s most populous state, where nearly one in five voters face the risk of deletion from the list and about 36 million hearings are scheduled. Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in early 2027.
Two extensions have been given so far in West Bengal. The SIR was launched in the state on November 4 when the draft roll, in which 5.8 million names of absent, dead, transferred and fake voters were deleted, was released on December 16 after which the hearing process began. About 15 million voters, who could not be added to the 2002 voter list when the last SIR was held in the state and who had logical discrepancies, were called for hearing. According to EC sources, around 5 lakh voters did not appear in the hearing process. Their names are also likely to be omitted from the final list. “While around 97% hearings have been completed, 75%-80% data has been uploaded. Verification has been completed in around 70%-80% cases,” Agarwal said.
People aware of the poll panel’s development said the list of constituencies where the hearing process is yet to be completed spans North Kolkata, South Kolkata, South 24 Parganas, Darjeeling, North 24 Parganas and Howrah districts.
Reacting to the development, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said: “There are long queues of voters at hearing centres. Voters are being harassed. BJP and ECI have turned the SIR process into a joke…”
More Read
Union minister Sukant Majumder said: “What can BJP say about this? Let the final voter list be published first. Later BJP will clarify its position.”
