Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed the Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to fill all vacant posts of Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO), if any, by August 29, and submit a compliance report to the Commission. A senior official from the state CEO’s office said that Manoj Agarwal received the communication in Delhi on Friday. On July 5, the Commission had asked all states, including Bengal, to prepare for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list. However, a dispute over the SIR in Bihar is now before the Supreme Court and remains pending. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has already raised questions about the ‘SIR’ process in Bihar alleging that it is actually an attempt to launch NRC through the back door.
To support this claim, the party has highlighted on its X handle a survey report by Bihar CEO’s Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The report states that 98 per cent of the respondents were aware of the voter list, and more than 99 per cent knew their names were registered in it. The TMC has questioned how 65 lakh voters could suddenly become “ineligible” in just one year. The Bihar CEO’s survey also claims that the details of 98.9 per cent of the respondents were recorded correctly.
According to sources, the main obstacle in the implementation of ‘SIR’ in this state is not the ERO or AERO, but the Booth Level Officers (BLOs). There are presently 80,681 booths in the state and the process of appointing BLOs for each booth has not been completed yet. The process of reorganizing booths to accommodate a maximum of 1,200 voters per booth has started as per the Commission’s new instructions. About 14,000 more booths will be added to it. BLOs are supposed to play a key role in the implementation of ‘SIR’ as they would go door to door and deliver the ‘SIR’ forms to the voters.