Even as Assembly elections draw near, the existence of nearly 50 lakh voters whose names are listed in West Bengal’s electoral rolls is under serious doubt.A special verification campaign is being launched from mid-January, in all the districts. Sources in the State Electoral Department say despite efforts during revision of electoral rolls, at least 8 per cent of the total 4.21 crore voters in the state could not be photographed. This means, no Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) for them.Besides, a certain percentage of the remaining 92 per cent already photographed could not be reached. According to election department estimates, the percentage of such voters whose cards remained undistributed would not be less than 2 per cent of the total.If these two categories of voters are taken into account—those with prepared but undistributed EPIC cards (2 per cent) and those who could not be photographed at all (8 per cent) —the total number of suspect voters in the rolls would add up to about 50 lakh.The office of the State Chief Electoral Officer, Debashish Sen, has directed the respective district magistrates to issue letters to the absentee EPIC voters.The missing voters would be given 10 days to reply to the electoral registration officer.
