The West Bengal election machinery is set to enter the hearing phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, with around 32 lakh unmapped voters to be called in the first round, officials from the office of the State Chief Electoral Officer said on Monday.
Hearings for this category, voters whose names could not be linked with those of family members in the 2002 electoral rolls, will begin from December 27.
“We have started sending notices to around 10 lakh such voters from today, while the same will be issued to another 22 lakh voters from Tuesday,” the official told PTI.
According to officials, 31,68,424 unmapped voters were identified across the state during the enumeration phase of the revision exercise.
The hearings will take place at multiple locations, including district magistrates’ offices, sub-divisional offices, government departments, and educational institutions such as schools and colleges.
Each hearing will be conducted under the supervision of a micro-observer, the official said.
Officials added that voters flagged for logical discrepancies will be taken up in the next phase of the SIR. “Guidelines have been sought from the Election Commission” for this stage, the official said.
Around 4,000 micro-observers will be deployed for the hearing process. Training for these officials will be conducted in two phases on December 24 in Kolkata. All the micro-observers are officials from within the state, the CEO’s office said.
Earlier in the day, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee raised concerns about the process, alleging that the micro-observers lack knowledge of the local Bengali language.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission will send a delegation to the state to review the progress of the SIR exercise.
“The Commission's Principal Secretary SB Joshi and Deputy Secretary Abhinav Agarwal will arrive in the state to assess the progress of the hearing phase under the SIR process,” the official said.
The visiting officials will also attend the training programme for micro-observers scheduled for December 24, he added.