Bengal CEO seeks extension of SIR hearing deadline by a week

KOLKATA: Bengal chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal has written to Election Commission seeking an extension of the deadline for SIR hearing and verification by a week till Feb 14. If granted, this will also push back the deadline for publication of the final electoral roll. The hearing phase of the SIR exercise in Bengal was scheduled to be completed on Saturday and the final list was to be published on Feb 14.

Some 1.4 crore voters have queued up at hearing centres across the state for the past six weeks since Dec 27. They, and about 6 lakh voters whose hearings are yet to take place, will now have to wait at least two more weeks to find out if their names remain on the state’s voters’ list.




The SIR hearings, covering about a fifth of Bengal’s total electorate of 7.6 crore but crammed into just six weeks, have fuelled an intense political fight between Trinamool Congress on one hand and EC and BJP on the other, culminating in Mamata Banerjee’s appearance in Supreme Court as “a people’s petitioner”, unprecedented for a serving chief minister. Banerjee has repeatedly flagged the haste in which the exercise is being carried out and the intense pressure that has resulted in deaths of several voters and BLOs. The 2002 SIR exercise was conducted over two years.

This is the second time that the hearing deadline in Bengal is being pushed back. On Nov 30, EC had extended Bengal’s SIR schedule by a week, thus pushing back the deadline for each phase by seven days.

“I sent a proposal to the EC in the evening to extend the deadline by seven days after being informed by seven-eight DEOs that some work was still pending in a few places. In some areas, hearing is yet to be completed. Work related to uploading of documents and verification is pending in a few places. A final decision is also pending with the EROs/AEROs in many assembly constituencies,” Agarwal said. The CEO confirmed that the publication of the final electoral roll, which is scheduled for Feb 14, will also be deferred.

“The final list will be deferred because after the hearing and verification phase, we need to check the list before sending it to EC. Earlier, we were supposed to send it by Feb 10. The Commission needs another 3-4 days to publish the final electoral roll. Now, if the hearing and verification phase is extended, the final publication of electoral roll will also be deferred.”

Agarwal claimed different districts are currently in different phases of hearing and verification. The DEO of Kolkata North Lok Sabha constituency has informed the CEO that hearing has not been completed in one assembly segment. Similarly, hearing exercise is yet to be completed in Kolkata Port assembly constituency under Kolkata South Lok Sabha seat. The hearing process is also incomplete in seven assembly constituencies in South 24 Parganas, Noapara in North 24 Parganas and the Kurseong assembly seats.

“Only 3%-4% of the total hearings are pending. Of the completed hearings, 75%-80% of documents have been uploaded and 70%-80% of these uploaded documents have been verified. EROs/AEROs have disposed of 25%-30% of cases where documents have been verified till now,” Agarwal said.