No decision yet on rollout of voter appeal tribunals in Bengal: CEO Manoj Agarwal
“The Supreme Court has directed that those whose names have been deleted will have the option of approaching the courts. However, no final decision has been taken yet on when and where these courts will start functioning,” Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal told reporters on Friday.
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He said the state government has suggested certain locations for setting up the courts, while the Calcutta High Court has suggested the Judicial Academy in New Town as a possible location.
“The West Bengal government has identified locations for courts in each district. Now the high court will take a decision,” Agarwal said. he said.
“After the HC’s decision, it will be up to the state government to hand over the office building. Once these processes are completed, the courts will start working to address the grievances of the voters,” he added.
Attending a meeting in the Kolkata High Court on Thursday, Agarwal said the software required for voters to challenge the decisions is ready and “will become functional very soon, this week or early next week”.
On the absence of lists showing deletions and additions, a Deputy CEO said voters can verify their status individually through the Election Commission portal.
Names flagged during the verification process have been placed in the “under jurisdiction” category for further review, officials said. These situations include questionable duplication, handling, or lack of proper documentation.
The EC released the second supplementary list under the SIR of electoral rolls in West Bengal on Friday night.
However, the survey panel did not provide detailed information about the total number of deletions or additions to the list.
“The second list has been published. We cannot reveal more,” an EC official said. he said.
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Stand-based lists were published on the EC’s website at around 23.30, but the websites containing information about deletions or additions could not be accessed due to “technical glitches”.
The commission published the first additional list of ‘Under Decision’ voters on Monday, but remained tight-lipped on the number of deletions or the exact number of cases included in this list, drawing criticism from various quarters.
A total of 58 lakh names were deleted after the enumeration phase of the Special Intensive Revision exercise and the state’s eligible voters reduced from the initial 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore due to death, migration, duplication and untraceability.
Post-SIR lists released on February 28 reduced the number of valid voters to just over 7.04 crore; this includes over 60 lakh names under judicial scrutiny.
Voting for the 294-member West Bengal assembly will be held on April 23 and 29 and counting will be held on May 4.
