45% of 'discrepancy' voters may be cut from Bengal rolls before polls
45% of 'discrepancy' voters may be cut from Bengal rolls before polls
As Bengal gears up for two-phase polls, up to 2.7 million names could be deleted after adjudication, with tribunals not yet fully operational.
In West Bengal, around 45% of the six million voters placed in the controversial 'logical discrepancy' category are likely to be removed from the electoral rolls after adjudication, according to the state’s chief electoral officer. This comes just hours before rolls were frozen for the first phase of the assembly polls. The 19 tribunals — set up to hear appeals from people rejected during adjudication — are yet to become fully operational. The chief electoral officer, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, said judicial officers appointed by the Calcutta High Court would dispose of all six million cases by Monday night, and that roughly 45% of these were likely to be deleted, translating to about 2.7 million names. The electoral rolls published on February 28 listed 70.46 million voters after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), with 6.18 million names deleted at that point. A senior poll officer said the phase 1 seats housed about 3.2 million of the six million ‘logical discrepancy’ voters, and with the rolls now closed for phase 1, roughly 1.44 million of these may be unable to vote. The cumulative deletions from the rolls during SIR in Bengal are now around 7.62 million. Bengal goes to the polls in two phases — 152 seats on April 23 and 142 seats on April 29. The nomination window for phase 1 has closed. The Supreme Court has refused to set a deadline for the tribunals. Two Muslim-majority districts, Murshidabad and Malda, have the highest numbers of voters under adjudication. Voters queue up to petition before the Special Tribunal ahead of the polls as the rolls are frozen and the legal process continues.
