E-Paper
SIR: Number of unmapped voters likely to drop in West Bengal
The EC has now decided that those voters who could not be mapped due to technical glitches won’t be called for hearing anymore.
The number of unmapped voters in the draft electoral roll of West Bengal is likely to drop as many voters could not be linked with the 2002 electoral roll due to some technical glitches, Election Commission (EC) officials have said.
“It has been reported from the districts that due to incomplete conversion of PDF of 2002 electoral roll data (last SIR in West Bengal) to CSV, linkage could not be fetched in BLO app in respect of many electors. These electors are marked unmapped, though they have either self or progeny linkage with the hard copy of 2002 electoral roll as authenticated and provided by the district election officer (DEOs) and published in the website of chief electoral officer of West Bengal (WB CEO),” stated a letter sent by the state’s additional CEO to all the DEOs on Saturday.
According to numbers released by the EC earlier in December, out of the 76.6 million voters in West Bengal more than 3.1 million voters couldn’t be mapped with the 2002 electoral roll.
“The number of unmapped voters is likely to drop from what was initially thought to be 3.1 million. It has been found that there are many voters who couldn’t be mapped due to technical glitches. There is a section of voters who couldn’t be mapped as neither their own name nor their parents’ and grandparents’ names were there in the 2002 list. They remain unmapped and will be called for hearing. But there is also a section whose names or their parents’ and grandparents’ names appear in the hard copies of the 2002 list, but were not showing on the BLO app. They couldn’t be mapped because of the technical glitch. These voters won’t be labelled as unmapped anymore,” said a senior poll panel official.
The EC had started sending letters to these unmapped voters calling them for hearing. Unmapped voters were supposed to come for the hearing with some documents, listed by the poll panel, to prove their authenticity.
The EC has now decided that those voters who could not be mapped due to technical glitches won’t be called for hearing anymore.
“Though hearing notices may have been generated from the system, these electors may not be called for hearing. Notices so generated in such cases may not be served and kept with the Electoral Registration Officer (of that constituency),” the letter sent to the DEOs said.
HT has seen a copy of the letter. It also states that an extract of the 2002 electoral roll may be sent to the concerned DEO for verification. After verification by the DEO, the cases may be disposed of. BLOs have been asked to visit such ‘unmapped’ electors and take a photo with them and upload them.
It, however, states: “In case where discrepancies are detected later on with the hard copy of 2002 electoral roll by the ERO or additional ERO or on complaints, the concerned electors may be called for hearing after serving notices.”
While SIR was launched in the state on November 4, the draft roll was published on December 16. More than 5.8 million names of absent, shifted, dead and duplicate voters were dropped from the draft roll.
Hearing of unmapped voters took off in the state from Saturday. A political slugfest had erupted on the first day after the poll panel called at least four family members of TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, including her mother, sister and two sons, for hearing.
“The enumeration forms clearly show that there is no linkage. So, they are called for hearing as per relevant provisions of the notification of ECI,” the poll panel wrote on X.
TMC supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee had last week lashed out at the EC alleging that there are gross errors in mapping of voters and that the exercise was riddled with blunders from A to Z.
On Friday, TMC national general secretary and party MP Abhishek Banerjee had threatened to gherao the ECI’s office in New Delhi if the poll panel doesn’t release the list of 16.3 million voters who have come under the scanner due to logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms.
The TMC meanwhile on Saturday sharpened its attack against the poll panel after reports poured in that elderly and ailing voters were being called for hearing as they were labelled as unmapped.
“How can the EC be so inhumane? Can’t it see the problems which people are facing? How are elderly, ailing and specially-abled people supposed to reach the hearing venues? People are coming in ambulances to the hearing venues. Why can’t the EC go to the residences of these electors? Why are people being dragged like this,” said Shashi Panja, senior TMC leader and state minister.
“The draft roll is not the ultimate. While those names who have been dropped from the list may be included in future, on the other hand names, which have been included in the draft list, may be dropped in the future after verification. BLAs of political parties are verifying each and every name. Instead of shouting, the TMC should ask its BLAs to find out names which have been dropped or included erroneously,” said Tarunjyoti Tiwari, BJP leader and high court advocate.
