Over 27 lakh voters were found ineligible by the Election Commission at the end of the deadline for the adjudication process in Bengal, which will vote in Assembly elections on April 23 and 29.
A district-wise list of eligible and ineligible voters stated that of the 60.06 lakh voters marked under adjudication in the final rolls released on February 28, a total of 27,16,393 voters were found ineligible.
The Election Commission had earlier deleted 58.25 lakh voters marked as dead, absent, shifted or duplicate from the draft rolls that were published in December last year, bringing down the total number of electors in Bengal to 7.04 crore from 7.66 crore. An additional five lakh voters were deleted from the final rolls published on February 28.
That brings the total deletion of voters from Bengal’s electoral rolls at slightly below 91 lakh.
"The revision exercise has been carried out in a phased and transparent manner,” a senior poll panel official told PTI.
“District-wise data has now been placed in the public domain to ensure complete accountability. Once the pending procedural formalities, including e-signatures, are completed, there may be marginal changes in both deletion and inclusion figures," the official added.
Of the 294 seats in the Bengal Assembly, 152 seats will go to the polls on April 23 in the first phase. The electoral rolls for phase one of polling are now frozen.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain the Bengal government’s plea to direct the 19 appellate tribunals to pass interim orders allowing at least certain categories of excluded voters to vote, saying “we do not want to rush it”.
The remaining 142 seats of the Assembly will vote in the second phase on April 29. The rolls for the second round will be frozen Thursday, April 9.
The highest number of deletions have happened in the Muslim-majority district of Murshidabad, where out of the 11,01,145 voters marked under adjudication, 4,55,137 voters were found ineligible.
The lowest deletions were in Jhargram – 1,240 voters.
In Kolkata North 39,164 voters were deleted and in Kolkata South, the district which includes the Bhabanipur Assembly constituency where chief minister Mamata Banerjee is pitted against leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, 28,468 voters have been deleted.
The father of a young Muslim boy in Kolkata’s Park Circus, who had applied for a voter card for his son as a first-time voter, told The Telegraph Online: “My son’s application was rejected; no reason was given.”
Addressing a campaign meeting in Nadia, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said that the Trinamool will fight for the inclusion in the electoral rolls of the 27-lakh-plus voters whose names have been deleted after adjudication.
“I went to the Supreme Court. Now the list has come out and 32 lakh voters of the 60 lakh under adjudication have been included. The rest, we will try for their inclusion in the tribunals. Do not worry,:” Mamata said at the Mashra Nabopally ground in Chakdaha.
“Many voters have been deleted in Murshidabad, North Dinajpur, Malda, South 24-Parganas. In Gaighata, Chakdaha, Haringhata they have deleted Matuas.”
Mamata said those who apply in the tribunals will get lawyers from the party.
“I will have to see how many have been included and how many deleted. They have targeted Muslims, Matuas, Rajbongshis,” Mamata said.
In Bihar, where the first SIR was first rolled out, around 65 lakh voters were deleted in the draft rolls from the 7.89 crore electors. In the final rolls released on September 30 last year, Bihar had 7.42 crore electors. In Bihar the SIR process was concluded before the poll dates were announced which allowed the inclusion of new voters via Form -6.
In Tamil Nadu, which will go to polls on April 23 for all its 234 Assembly constituencies, 74,07,207 voters were found ineligible.
