Kolkata: Confusion over the first supplementary list of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bengal persisted through Tuesday, with complaints emerging from several booths that the lists were not fully downloadable, were difficult to access online, and that offline copies had not reached.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) had uploaded the supplementary list on its website late Monday night, as well as on the website of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.
State Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said he could not specify the total number of voters marked as “deleted” in the supplementary list. “There may be some problems initially, but things will be sorted out. We have uploaded booth-wise lists of electors against whom we have received e-signed copies from judicial officers involved in the adjudication process. Our job is only to publish the list. Judicial officers are sending e-signed lists from time to time and not all at once. It is a dynamic process, so I cannot comment on the deletion figures at this juncture,” he said. Till Monday late afternoon, around 29 lakh out of a total 60 lakh cases under adjudication had been disposed of by around 700 judicial officers.
Meanwhile, two Trinamool Congress candidates—Jakir Hossain (Jangipur) and Bairon Biswas (Sagardighi)—received relief after their names were cleared in adjudication.
However, the name of Faizul Haque alias Kajal Sheikh, the TMC candidate from Hasan in Birbhum district, did not figure in the supplementary list. Golam Rabbani, slated to contest from Goalpokhor on a TMC ticket, was also missing from the list. The name of BJP candidate Kalita Majhi from Ausgram in East Burdwan district has been cleared in the supplementary list.
In Basirhat North Assembly Constituency (Part No. 5), as many as 340 voter applications were under adjudication, and all the names have allegedly been deleted in the first supplementary list. The name of the Booth Level Officer (BLO), Mohammad Safiul Alam, was also found deleted, raising serious concerns over the process. Alam confirmed the development, stating that all 340 applications under adjudication had been removed from the list. According to sources, he had personally digitised the documents submitted by the applicants. Most had valid papers, with only a few discrepancies. It remains unclear why even those with proper documentation were deleted.