The Election Commission of India will hold a video conference with all district election officers of Bengal on October 8 to assess the preparations for the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls at the grassroots level.

The call for the meeting is considered the first major step towards carrying out the SIR of electoral rolls in Bengal.

Sources said that deputy election commissioner (DEO) Gyanesh Bharti, who is in charge of Bengal, along with a few other EC officials, would be in Calcutta to attend the video conference on October 8.

“The EC is likely to declare the SIR dates of Bengal soon after the video conference is held. A team of the EC will visit two to three districts in Bengal after the video conference to check the preparedness before announcing the SIR dates,” said a source on the poll panel.

The EC has already asked the DEOs to attend the video conference and ensure that the ADM (elections), electoral registration officers, officer-in-charge (elections) and IT personnel attend the session positively.

The poll panel made it clear that the officials of Bengal should complete all groundwork for the SIR before the meeting.

“The appointment of BLOs by following the guidelines of the EC, matching of 2002 and 2025 electoral rolls and appointment of data entry operators from the pool of government employees in the Group C and above need to be completed before the video conference. The EC will take note of preparedness at the grassroots level,” said
a source.

Another official pointed out that the visit of the EC officials to two to three districts soon after the conference assumed significance, as it gave a clear hint that the EC wanted to be 100 per cent sure that all details which would be presented by the state government officials
were genuine.

“A trust issue has cropped up after the EC recently found that the names of several fictitious voters were inserted in the electoral rolls of four Assembly segments. The EC had asked the state to suspend four officials and lodge FIRs against them. The state suspended the officials but refused to lodge FIRs against them. All these made the EC take steps to make 100 per cent sure about the reports submitted by the state officials,” said a senior official.

Sources aware of the development said that senior EC officials would visit Bihar in the first week of October, and it was expected that election dates for Bihar would be announced in the early second week of the current month. “After the Bihar election dates are announced, the SIR schedules for four states, including Bengal, which will go to the polls next year, will be announced,” said an official.