SIR: 10 L Bengal names to be s

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SIR: 10 L Bengal names to be scrapped, says ECI

Not 1.5 Crore, as claimed by Subhendu Adhikari, Bengal Assembly's Leader of Opposition earlier, the Election Commission of India is set to clean up West Bengal's voter rolls by removing over 10 lakh names through the ensuing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.

Mostly, the dead voters, duplicate or multiple entries, and those who have permanently moved out of the state will be primary targets for deletion, the officials claimed. Voters have until December 4 to submit their enumeration forms or risk automatic removal from the voter list. The draft list will be published on December 9, marking a significant effort to maintain electoral roll accuracy.

Maximum deletions, the officials hinted, are in the dead voters category at 6.5 lakh.

"The BLOs are the real heroes in the revision exercise," stated Manoj Kumar Agarwal, CEO West Bengal today.

The ECI's estimate follows an evaluation of enumeration forms already collected by two-level officers (BOs/BLOs) and uploaded to the BLO App, an insider from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, said.

The insider added that the names to be deleted will include the dead, duplicate entries (that is, voters whose names appear at two places simultaneously), voters who have permanently shifted to another state, and missing or untraceable voters.

"The maximum deletions will be in the category of dead voters, which will be around 6.5 lakh," the CEO's office insider said. "The process of collecting the duly filled enumeration forms and uploading them in the BLO App is ongoing, and the exact number of names to be deleted from the voters' list will be known only after the process is completed and the draft voters' list is published by the commission."

On Monday, the CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, appealed to voters who are yet to submit their duly filled enumeration forms to BLOs to do so at the earliest.

He reminded voters that the last date for submission of the duly filled enumeration forms is December 4, and that the deadline will not be extended. Those who do not submit the duly filled enumeration forms will have their names automatically deleted from the voters' list.