Bengal Polls: First Supplementary Voter List Out Today After Judicial Review

As per statistics available from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, till Sunday night, the judicial adjudication process had been completed for 28,06,000 cases, and all these cases will be mentioned in the first supplementary under the "approved" and "rejected" categories.

An insider from the CEO's office said that roughly 34 per cent of cases whose judicial adjudication process has been completed have been found excludable. However, the voters whose names will be found excludable would have the liberty to challenge that in 19 Appellate Tribunals, especially constituted for that purpose.

To recall, the final voters' list in West Bengal, minus those 60 lakh odd names which were referred for judicial adjudication, was published on February 28. As per the order of the Supreme Court, supplementary lists will be published periodically on the basis of the progress of the judicial adjudication, the first of which will be published on Monday.

It is learnt that the list will reach the district magistrates, as well as the district election officers, by afternoon. Voters will be able to see the additional list by going online to the Election Commission of India (ECI)'s website from this evening. The additional list will be displayed at the booths, BDO, SDO offices, and DM offices.

Already, the state police administration, as per the instruction of the ECI, has taken all possible security measures to prevent instances of tension or violence over grievances following the publication of the first supplementary list.

A security-related meeting was held on Sunday at the office. The CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, met with the Joint Force Deployment Committee on this count. The meeting discussed the deployment of Central forces in the upcoming Assembly elections.

The CEO's office insiders said that a plan was made on where and how many forces personnel will be deployed, as well as how the units will operate. The meeting was attended by state police nodal officer Anand Kumar, special police observer N.K. Mishra, central force nodal officers Shalav Mathur and Gaurav Sharma.

Meanwhile, the ECI's top brass at the Commission's headquarters in New Delhi will hold a high-level virtual meeting with the district magistrates, district police superintendents, and the commissioners of different police commissariats in the afternoon.

Polling for the West Bengal Assembly elections will be held in two phases on April 23 and April 29. Voting will take place in 152 constituencies in the first phase and in the remaining 142 constituencies in the second phase.

- IANS