Bengal SIR: Final voters' list, out on February 28, to contain two additional categories
Kolkata, Feb 26
The final voters' list in West Bengal, which will be published on February 28, will have names under two additional categories of "under adjudication" and "deleted", apart from those enlisted as genuine voters of the state.
This means that the names in the final voters' list will be specified under three categories.
West Bengal's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal told media persons on Thursday evening that the "under adjudication" category will have the names of those voters whose identity documents will continue to remain under the process of adjudication by the judicial officers appointed specially for the purpose as per the order of the Supreme Court.
"In the final voters' list, this category of voters will be enlisted in the 'under adjudication' category," he said.
It is learnt that supplementary lists will be published in due course with the names of the "under adjudication" category voters, whose names will be cleared by the judicial officers in the course of the judicial adjudication.
The third category in the final voters' list will be those voters who have been excluded during the entire course of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise that started in November last year.
The names of these excluded voters will appear in the final voters' list under the "deleted' category, Agarwal said.
CEO's office sources said that these three categories in the final voters' list are aimed at making the entire system transparent and also to make the voters aware of their respective positions.
However, the Commission is yet to come to a final decision about many voters who have been categorised under the "logical discrepancy" category, which means the voters in whose cases weird family-tree data was detected during the course of "progeny mapping".
There were 7.66 crore voters in West Bengal at the time of the announcement of the SIR. More than 58 lakh names were removed from that list, including those who were dead, absent, duplicate, or missing. The number of voters in the draft list published in December last year stands at 7.08 crore.
Now, it is to be seen how many voters already identified under the "logical discrepancy" category are finally deleted.
— IANS
Reader Comments
Removing 58 lakh names is a huge number! Shows how outdated our voter lists can get. This SIR exercise was much needed. Hope the process is fair and not politically motivated. 🤞
The 'under adjudication' category is a relief. My uncle's documents were stuck for months. At least now his name will be on the list with a status, so he can follow up properly. Good move by the EC.
While transparency is good, the process seems very complex for the common man. "Logical discrepancy", "progeny mapping" – these terms are confusing. The EC should run a simple awareness campaign in local languages.
Every vote counts! It's crucial that this cleanup doesn't disenfranchise legitimate voters, especially in rural areas where document issues are common. The judicial officers must be impartial.
Interesting to see such a detailed process. The 'progeny mapping' to find weird family trees sounds like a tech-driven approach to prevent fraud. Hope other states learn from this.
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