Bengal polls: Electoral roll revision to start from Nov 18

Kolkata: The Election Commission has set the ball rolling for the Assembly polls in the state in 2021 by organising an all party meeting at the office of the chief electoral officer (CEO) of the state Ariz Aftab on Monday afternoon on the preparation of the voters list.

All the political parties unanimously urged for an error free electoral roll and also demanded that the Booth Level Officers (BLO) should be present at the booth during the Special Summary Revision (SSR), The political parties also demanded inclusion of the migrant labourers in the voters' list.

The SSR which will start form November 18 will continue till December 15 and the voters can apply for inclusion, exclusion or correction in the electoral roll.

Amidst these 27 days all the Saturdays and Sundays (8 in total) will be treated as Special Campaign Days where the BLOs will be present at the booth from 12 to 3 pm hours else two hours on normal days. The election commission will dispose of all the claims and objections by January 5 and will publish the final voters' list on January 15.

Voters can also know their status through SMS and online submission of claim forms.

Trinamool Congress Secretary General Partha Chatterjee said that a good number of migrant labourers have come back to the state after a long time because of the pandemic. "They need to have a participation in the election. So we have urged the Commission that migrant workers who want to participate in the election should be included. We have also demanded for an error free electoral roll so that all the people of the state can exercise their franchise freely," said Chatterjee.

The Commission has already rationalised the booths and 99 additional booths have been created to avoid overcrowding in booths. The Commission in the 'New Normal' has said that no booth should have more than 1,500 voters.

Presently there are 780,903 booths in the state and the commission needs nearly 79,000 BLOs for the SSR. The commission will hold a meeting with the district administration including the DMs and the SPs within a couple of days to frame the final guidelines for the SSR programme.