West Bengal's electoral draft roll was released on Tuesday morning, marking the completion of phase 1 of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. About 58 lakh voters, amounting to 7.6 per cent, were removed from the voter list because they have died, moved away, were absent or were registered more than once. This has reduced the total number of voters from 7.6 crore to 7.1 crore.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal said this was the first time the SIR exercise was being conducted digitally. The Booth Level Officers (BLOs) have uploaded all the forms which can be accessed by district officials as well as the Election Commission (EC). "The EC has gone through the large data and found 'logical discrepancies' for 1,67,45,911 voters," he said.
The CEO further explained there are seven categories that the ECI has flagged - those who have more than six persons linked in the progeny mapping; those with mismatch of father's name from the 2002 SIR list and the current voters list; those who have shown their linkages to their parents, but the age difference is less than 50 years; those whose age difference with grandparents is less than 40 years; a gender mismatch, and those electors who are above 45 years but haven't been able to self-map themselves to the 2002 SIR list, and those with gender mismatch.
Out of these, the highest logical discrepancies have been found in the cateogry of those electors whose names don't match with their father's name- 85,01,486 (11.09 per cent). This is followed by those who have been linked to more than six persons in progeny mapping- 24,21,133 (3.16 per cent) while 20,74,256 (2.71 per cent) electors age was more than 45 years but couldn't trace their names in the 2002 SIR list. 13,46,918 voters (1.76 per cent) had gender mismatch. Thi was followed by those whose age difference is less than 15 years with their parents - 11,95,230 (1.56 per cent). 8,77,736 voters (1.15 per cent) have shown the age difference with parents less than 50 years. And 3,29,152 (0.43 per cent) have been flagged to have shown the difference with their grandparents less than 40 years.
All these above categories are likely to be served notices for hearing. Sources in the CEO office said the minute errors of gender mismatch are likely to be corrected, reducing the number of eliminations from Bengal voter list.
The notices will be hand delivered by the BLOs and hearings are likely to begin in the next 7 days where the permitted documents will be required to be submitted to ensure their names are not struck off the roll call. While the 58 lakh names have already been deleted, no notices will be served to them. Those amongst this pool must submit Form 6,7 or 8 with annexure 4 for fresh enrolment subject to district admin. Those amongst the logical discrepancies are likely to be served notices for hearing in the coming days.
