Bengal voter lists frozen, only 2 of 27.16 lakh deleted known to have got tribunal hearing
Sources said that by Thursday, more than 2 lakh appeals had been received online for hearing by tribunals, which are yet to become functional
At a special tribunal for people whose names have been deleted after SIR, in Dakshin Dinajpur district’s Balurghat. (PTI) At Thursday midnight, the second and remaining voter list for the coming West Bengal Assembly elections was frozen, with the promised 19 tribunals never materialising. Only two of the 27,16,393 names “deleted” following adjudication are known to have eventually been heard and included – both on the intervention of the Supreme Court.
While there was no word from the office of Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agrawal, sources said that by Thursday, more than 2 lakh appeals had been received online for hearing by tribunals.
With the tribunals that were to come up at a Central government institute near Kolkata not functional yet, desperate voters continued to queue up at offices of Block Development Officers and District Magistrates across the state, with their documents, unsure both about applying online or if that would be enough.
The only two who are known to have made it to the voter list following deletion during adjudication are Motab Shaikh, the Congress candidate from Farakka, and Mottakin Alam, a former Manikchak MLA who after restoration as voter filed his nomination as a Congress candidate from Ratua.
The Supreme Court on Monday denied the West Bengal government’s plea that would have allowed certain categories of deleted voters to cast their ballots, or for voter lists to not be frozen. The Court also refused to set a strict deadline for the 19 tribunals to complete their backlog.
A staff member at the Syama Prasad Mookerjee National Institute of Water and Sanitation where the tribunals are to come up told The Indian Express: “Work has progressed, but no tribunal has been set up yet… Maybe another day or two.”
On April 7, in what was seen as an attempt to speed up the process, senior IAS officer Vibhu Goel was appointed as Additional Chief Electoral Officer, and tasked with being the single point of contact between the ECI, the Calcutta High Court, and the tribunals to plug any gaps.
The voter list for the first phase of Assembly elections, on April 23, was frozen on April 6. Thursday marked the deadline for the voter list for the second phase of polling on April 29.
After an exercise lasting more than a month, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had on Monday midnight brought out its final Supplementary List after adjudication.
At the end of the whole Special Intensive Revision exercise, the number of voters in West Bengal has declined to around 6.77 crore voters from 7.66 crore. This marks a deletion of 89 lakh voters, or 11.62% in all.
While 58 lakh names were deleted initially, another 60.06 lakh were referred for adjudication.
Among those queued up outside the Minakhan BDO on Thursday was Chaleya Begum, 61. “I appealed online and went to the BDO office,” she said. “But they said it’s out of their hands now.”
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