Senior Election Commission officials will meet on Monday and Tuesday to discuss Bengal’s poll preparedness amid hints that the election dates may be announced soon after Holi, Wednesday, possibly leaving the fate of lakhs of “under adjudication” voters under a cloud.

An early announcement of elections could mean that close to half of the 60.06 lakh under-adjudication cases remain unresolved for lack of time, leaving these voters unable to vote, poll panel sources said.

With a large segment of the under-adjudication voters coming from minority belts, such a possibility would be a blow to Trinamool, officials said.

A senior poll panel official said a full bench of the commission usually visits a poll-bound state soon after the preparedness meeting by senior officials, following which the election dates are declared.

Sources said a full bench might visit Bengal after Holi, and the poll dates may be announced in the second week of March.

If that happens, the judicial officers assigned to settle the under-adjudication cases might get only about 30 days to dispose of them before the last day for filing nominations – also the deadline for voter
inclusions.

A senior official said that right now, each of the 501 judicial officers was disposing of about 225 cases a day. At this rate, completing the 60.06 lakh cases would take 53 days.

“If the process continues at the existing pace, the cases of a little over 50 per cent of the voters under adjudication may be settled before the deadline,” a source said.

A state government official said: “It’s clear that most of the voters under adjudication are from minority-dominated areas. If close to 30 lakh cases remain pending before the polls, these voters will not be able to vote. This will be a blow to the ruling party.”

He, however, explained that the real setback for Trinamool was the large list of under-adjudication voters itself, for a significant proportion of these voters are likely to be rejected anyway for lack of the required papers.

In that scenario, an early deadline for the adjudications may not be too much of an additional jolt for the ruling party, he argued. For, large segments of the cases that may remain unresolved would have led to rejections after adjudication, anyway.