29 Lakh Names Sorted Among 60 Lakh ‘Adjudicated’ Voters; 1st Supplementary List Yet To Be Out

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal on Monday evening announced that around 29 lakh names have been listed from the tally of 60.06 lakh voters who were marked as ‘under jurisdiction’ due to logical inconsistencies in the special intensive revision (SIR) and submitted for scrutiny by judicial officials.

Mr. Agarwal, however, could not specify how many names were deleted from the first supplementary voter list, which was not published by the EC till the latest reports came in. “Around 29 lakh names have been eliminated so far. The total number of those deleted is unknown,” said Mr. Agarwal, adding that the first additional voter list will be published after 9 pm.

According to him, it takes at least six hours to prepare such a list, which will bear the e-signatures of 705 judicial officials involved in the review of ‘judged’ names. However, the initial list was not available either online or offline until late at night. The CEO also stated that he learned that the review process of the ‘decided’ names has been completed in four districts namely Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and Kalimpong.

When asked about the public order situation in the state, he said, “This is a matter for the state. The general secretary, the general director of police and the police chiefs were asked to be alert.” On February 28, the EC reduced the total number of voters in the state going to polls from around 7.66 crore to around 7.04 crore after deleting the names of around 63.66 lakh voters in the first two phases of SIR in four months and placing another 60.06 lakh names ‘under decision’ due to logical inconsistencies.