The chief electoral officer of Bengal has instructed district election officers not to use casual data entry operators hired for the electoral-roll revision process in the disposal of forms and any duties involved in ERONet, the Election Commission’s website to handle all work related to elector registration.
The process of voter registration and field verification has been automated with ERONET, which is accessible only to officials deployed in the election process.
“Sample checking of less than one per cent Form 6 disposals by EROs [election registration officers] during continuous updation has revealed that two of them had accepted a considerable number of Form 6 for fictitious voters,” Manoj Kumar Agarwal, Bengal’s chief electoral officer, wrote in his letter on July 28.
“In all these cases BLOs [booth-elevel officers] verification was dispensed with or without any apparent urgency/requirement and similar documents were captured for a large number of application forms and their verification reports,” Agarwal wrote.
“Both the EROs have since admitted that they had provided user access to the ERO net to the AERO/OC Election [officials] in BDO office and casual data entry operators who had thereafter disposed of the form 6 applications.”
Agarwal’s missive to the district election officers has come amid the special intensive revision being carried out in neighbouring Bihar and buzz that the exercise will be replicated in Bengal.
The Trinamool Congress has taken the lead among the Opposition parties calling out the exercise as a ploy to implement NRC (National Register of Citizens) in the state and disenfranchise millions of poor people.
The main Opposition in Bengal, the BJP, has been alleging Bangladeshi nationals are being included in the electoral rolls under the protection of the ruling Trinamool.
The CEO’s office has instructed the district election officers to make a team of senior officers and conduct a sample check of all the Form 6 disposals done in the last one year. They have to send a report to the CEO’s office by August 14.
Leader of Opposition in the Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari the memo from the CEO exposed a scandalous betrayal of democracy.
“They are not supposed to share the passwords of ERONET to the casual data entry operators. In Kakdwip an FIR has been filed and the accused is absconding,” Suvendu told The Telegraph Online. “In Bihar FIR has been filed against 403 booth level officers and 52 have been arrested. Unfortunately, Bengal is not Bihar.”
Adhikari said the chief electoral officer’s letter proves sample checks had revealed that Form 6 disposals showed non-compliance with the Electors’ Act, 1960, including acceptance of applications without proper verification, leading to fictitious voter entries.
“The BLOs collected documents citing urgency and EROs (who are state government employees) admitted to providing unauthorised access to AEROs/OC Election in BDO offices/ casual data entry operators, who disposed of Form 6 applications,” said Suvendu.
Demanding an immediate investigation by the Election Commission, Suvendu said, “The West Bengal government’s administration has been rigging the system. It’s time to put things in order.”