The Election Commission of India has instructed all district election officers (DEOs) in Bengal to ensure that all information technology (IT) tasks, including data entry related to the revision of voter lists, are carried out by permanent government employees.

“Assistance for IT related work will only be solicited from system managers, assistant system managers and data entry operators who are permanent government employees, drawing salary from the Home & HA department…,” reads an order issued by the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Bengal, Manoj Agarwal, on Wednesday.

The order assumed significance in the backdrop of the enrollment of fictitious voters in two Assembly segments, for which the EC had directed the state to suspend, initiate departmental proceedings and lodge FIRs against four government officials, along with a contractual data entry operator.

During an investigation by the CEO’s office, the electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) of the Moyna and Baruipur (East) Assembly constituencies alleged that data entry operators had inserted fictitious names on the voter lists using their login credentials.

“As a majority of the data entry operators in Bengal, who are engaged in electoral roll revision, are contractual employees, no departmental action could be initiated against them. Only an FIR was asked to be lodged against the data entry operator of Baruipur East as enough evidence was found against him,” said an official.

“This is why the EC wanted regular government employees as data entry operators
so that proper action could be initiated against them in case of any misconduct,” said another official.

Although the DEOs were asked to engage home department employees for IT-related work, including data entry, sources said the state had only 120-odd such employees in total. However, each of the 294 Assembly segments in the state has about 10 AEROs.

“These are handled mainly by contractual employees who have zero accountability for their misdeeds.... It is also alleged that most of these data entry operators are close to the ruling party of Bengal. The BJP was alleging that the fictitious names were being inserted by these contractual employees at the behest of the ruling party,” said a source.

If there are not enough employees in the home department to handle data entry across the state, the CEO’s order said, the work will have to be done by regular government staff in Group C and above categories.

Sources said that the order gave a clear hint that the EC was not in the mood to take any chance before the probable special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state. “First, the EC has ensured that regular government employees are engaged as booth-level officers. Now, the EC is trying to ensure that the entry of data in the electoral rolls does not get compromised by any means. This is important for preparing error-free electoral rolls,” said a bureaucrat.