Micro-observers appointed by the Election Commission in Bengal have flagged 20 lakh names that have been uploaded on the system after SIR hearings with unlisted documents.

Names fed into the system are scrutinised by electoral registration officers and assistant EROs before they are sent to the EC for inclusion in the final electoral rolls. As EROs and AEROs are yet to take action on these 20 lakh cases — either recommend them for inclusion or reject them — the EC is keeping an eye on the progress in these instances, sources in the poll panel said.

The final date for disposing of cases is February 21, three days from now. The final rolls are scheduled to be declared on February 28.

“These cases are yet to be disposed of by the EROs and AEROs. The EC is keeping a tab on them to ensure that the names are not cleared for inclusion in the final rolls without proper documents,” said a poll panel official.

As many as 1.51 crore unmapped voters and voters with “logical discrepancies” have been heard so far in Bengal during the SIR drive. Around 58 lakh names were deleted when the draft rolls were published on December 16. Another 3.5 lakh voters have not turned up for hearings.

Sources said that according to the process, the documents of voters who appear for SIR hearings are uploaded on the app developed by the EC for the roll revision drive. District election officers verify the documents, following which micro-observers scrutinise them to ensure that only those documents approved by the EC have been accepted.

“The micro-observers flag to the EROs and AEROs cases where proper documents have not been uploaded. The EROs and AEROs are supposed to consider the issues raised by the micro-observers before disposing of the cases,” a source said.

Poll panel sources said that earlier, many EROs and AEROs in Bengal had cleared for final approval applications where bogus or irrelevant documents had been submitted, despite micro-observers flagging the discrepancies.

“Seven AEROs across the state were suspended directly by the EC after they were found guilty of clearing ineligible cases,” a poll panel official said.

The sources in the poll panel said the EROs and AEROs were under tremendous pressure because of the ruling dispensation’s “insistence” that no voter should be deleted.

An ERO said: “The micro-observers have flagged a number of cases after documents were uploaded following hearings. We are checking these cases again.”