ECI to Publish Separate Voter Lists Amid Bengal Election Scrutiny

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court, acting on a petition filed by Trinamool Congress, directed the Commission to publish only the list of "logical discrepancy" cases. However, on January 21, the ECI announced that it would take the apex court's order and publish two separate lists of "unmapped" and "logical discrepancy" cases identified during the revision exercise.

However, uncertainties persisted until Saturday morning regarding whether the deadline for publishing the two separate lists by 12 midnight can be met, as the two finally approved lists had not reached the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, from the Commission's headquarters in New Delhi by Friday night.

However, the CEO's office insiders expect the same to be released from the ECI's headquarters later on Saturday, following which it will be uploaded to the official website of the CEO's office.

Hard copies of the two lists will also be displayed at the different block offices and panchayat offices in case of village panchayats and ward offices in cases of municipalities and municipal corporations.

"Unmapped" voters are those who were unable to establish any linkage, either through "self mapping" or through "progeny mapping" with the voters' list of 2002, the last time when such intensive revision was carried out in West Bengal.

On the other hand, the "logical discrepancy" cases are those in which weird family-tree data has been detected in the course of "progeny mapping".

The number of "unmapped" voters in West Bengal is 31,68,426, while the number of "logical discrepancies" stands at 94,49,132.

Meanwhile, as per latest figures available from the CEO's office, of the 31,68,426, unmapped voters who were summoned for hearings on claims and objections on the draft voters' list, little over 3,00,000 voters had not turned up for hearings till Friday evening.

If these voters do not turn up finally, explained the CEO's office insiders, their names will also be deleted from the final voters' list.

Already, a little over 58 lakh voters were identified as deceased or shifted or duplicate voters during the enumeration phase, and hence their names were deleted in the draft voters list published on December 16 last year.

The deadline for the completion of the hearing sessions will expire on February 7, and the final voters' list is scheduled to be published on February 14. However, the Commission had indicated that both deadlines might be extended.

Soon after the publication of the final voters' list, the Commission is expected to announce the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in West Bengal scheduled later this year.

- IANS