The Election Commission has asked the district election officers (DEOs) to upload details of voters whose verification hearings are over, as the number of officially completed cases remains very low even though the hearing exercise of the special intensive revision (SIR) of poll rolls in Bengal started on December 27.

“There are reports that hearings of more than 27 lakh voters have already been completed, but details of only around 10 lakh voters have been uploaded. The EROs and AEROs are not uploading details of voters who could not submit required documents during the hearing. This could cause unnecessary delays,” said a senior poll panel official.

Some officials claimed that the EROs and AEROs — state government officials — were wary about uploading the details of the rest who came for hearings without documentation amid the alleged pressure of the ruling Trinamool Congress not to strike off names from the rolls randomly.

The EC had set a target to complete the hearings of 32 lakh unmapped voters by Wednesday — of which 27 lakh are reportedly done — and begin hearings of 40 lakh more voters with discrepancies in their enumeration forms from Thursday.

“The official figure of completed hearings is stuck at 10 lakh mark (not 27 lakh) as the EROs and AEROs have not uploaded details of the rest. An instruction has been sent to the DEOs to complete the process at the earliest, otherwise, it will be impossible to complete the process on time,” an official added.

According to reports sent by the district observers, around 65 per cent of unmapped voters could not furnish documents. If the details of these voters are uploaded, there is every chance that their names would be deleted from the rolls.

“They are uploading details of only those voters who furnished proper documents at the hearings. For the rest, they are not uploading the details and are waiting in anticipation of the voters coming back with any of the documents required. This is delaying the process,” said the official.

Another official said that a similar situation was noticed when the enumeration forms were being distributed.

In some districts, lakhs of forms were shown undistributed till the last week of the exercise, as forms of dead, shifted, duplicate and absent voters were being held up by the officials in some districts, including South 24-Parganas and North Calcutta, even though the BLOs did not find those persons even after the stipulated three visits.

“The EC had repeatedly asked the DEOs to show these forms ‘not distributed’ after three visits, but some of them waited till the last date, expecting that voters would turn up and collect the forms. We are seeing the same delay now,” said an official.

Sources said that at least 75 lakh hearings, including unmapped voters and voters with logical discrepancies, would have to be conducted in Bengal by February 7.

“If the process is not given a momentum, the deadline would be unmet. It could push back the date of publication of final rolls. If this happens, it may push back the Bengal Assembly elections also,” said a source.

A senior poll panel official said that they were trying hard to complete the process by increasing the number of hearing centres, but if the hearing details were not uploaded on time, the process would inevitably get delayed.

“The CEO’s office has proposed to appoint another 1,600 AEROs to increase the number of hearing centres to nearly 5,000 from the existing 3,234. But more important is that district officials must upload details of voters whose hearings have been completed without waiting for their papers any longer,” said an official.