SIR phase 2 in Bengal: Hearings post-Xmas, EC focuses on five border districts with most ‘discrepancies’

On December 16, the EC had published the draft roll, in which the number of voters shrunk from 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore with deletions of over 58 lakh names.

According to sources in the EC, there are seven categories of “logical discrepancies”:

1. Electors whose father has more than six children
2. Mismatch in the name of father
3. Age gap between electors and their parents is less than 15
4. Age gap between electors and their parents is over 50
5. Age gap between electors and grandfather is less than 40 years
6. Electors who enlisted their names after 45 years
7. Gender mismatches

“We have studied this data across the districts and found that more such cases are in the bordering districts of Malda, Murshidabad, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, and Nadia. Those who have such logical discrepancies, a maximum of them will be called for the hearing,” said an EC official, adding that the hearings will begin after Christmas, from December 27.

According to EC, the discrepancy of gap with parent age is less than 15, is highest in South 24 Parganas (1,39,702), followed by North 24 Parganas (92,951), Nadia (64,114), Murshidabad (63,148), and Malda (44,920).

Similarly, in cases where the parents’ age is more than 50 years, the highest is again South 24 Parganas (1,09,567), followed by Murshidabad (88,014), North 24 Parganas (77,476), Malda (54,704), and Nadia (49,410).

“We are expecting more hearing cases will be held in districts like South and North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia, and North and South Dinajpur. So, more hearings per day will be held in such districts by January 31,” a senior EC official said. “BLOs are already ordered to scrutinise all such data so that no wrong or misinformation gets updated. If there are some faults, the BDO should update them within seven days of the publication of electoral rolls, after which the hearing of progeny mapping and logical discrepancies will be held,” the official added.

EC: Around 32 lakh unmapped voters to be called in for hearings

Around 32 lakh unmapped voters will be called in the first phase of hearings, officials from the office of the State Chief Electoral Officer said on Monday.

Hearings for this category, in which voters could not link their names with those of family members in the 2002 electoral rolls, will begin on December 27, the official said.

“We have started sending notices to around 10 lakh such voters from today, while the same will be issued to another 22 lakh voters from Tuesday,” the official told PTI.

During the enumeration phase, a total of 31,68,424 unmapped voters were identified across the state. —With PTI