E-Paper
Bogus votes in West Bengal
Having given Bihar its cleanest polls last year, the Election Commission has started working on a repeat in West Bengal
The 19-member panel of EC observers, led by the commission's pointman K.J. Rao, after completing a tour of the state submitted a report to Chief Election Commissioner B.B. Tandon on Wednesday. In its report, the panel came down heavily on the state administration and the state election machinery for "largescale violation in preparing electoral rolls and issuing electoral photo-identity cards".
The EC had sent observers to all the 19 districts of the state to scrutinize the exercise for revision of rolls amid reports of gross violations by the district electoral officers.
In 11 districts, the observers detected names of dead persons or those who had shifted out of the locality in the voters' list. In some cases, they found that photo-identity cards had been issued to people whose names did not exist in the voters' list.
The observers also expressed concern in their reports over the fact that names of illegal migrants have been included in the electoral rolls, particularly in districts bordering Bangladesh.
The districts include Jalpaiguri, Coochbihar, Malda, North and South Dinajpur and Murshidabad.
Other districts where the observers found gross violations were North 24 Pargana, Nadia, Burdwan and Hooghly. Kolkata too was not spared. Rao himself had visited Nadia from where several irregularities have been reported. "The situation in some districts was so bad that we had to take immediate corrective measures," a source said.
Acting on the report, Tandon held a meeting with top officials of the poll panel. The EC issued a series of instructions to the West Bengal chief electoral officer, warning that another lapse would invite stern action. The state chief secretary has also been told to ensure that all instructions given by the observers should be complied with immediately.
The state CEO has been told that all complaints regarding deletion and addition of names in the voters' list should be disposed of by January 24. The State government has been asked to file a status report by January 31. Bengal has to have a new assembly by June 13.
Sources said the commission has also asked the state CEO to take strict disciplinary action against those government officials who fail to comply with their directives.
