A number of ministers skipped the cabinet meeting attended by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday as they were busy with preparations for the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls scheduled to start from Tuesday.

The chief electoral officer's office in Bengal remained busy throughout the day gearing up to make the exercise smooth.

“Ministers elected from Calcutta and adjoining districts like South and North 24-Parganas were present at the cabinet meeting on Monday where a series of proposals were approved. Only Udayan Guha, the north Bengal development affairs minister and an MLA from Cooch Behar, was present among ministers elected from districts, as he was in Calcutta. Rest of the ministers did not attend the meeting as they were asked to monitor the preparedness for the SIR,” said a minister.

According to sources, ruling Trinamool Congress was organising SIR camps in districts to make people aware of the exercise. The ministers were supposed to monitor camps in their respective areas. Moreover, ministers were also tasked to ensure that all booth-level agents (BLAs) of the party accompany the booth-level officers (BLOs) to the houses of voters to distribute enumeration forms.

“Moreover, ministers have been asked to be present in their areas to ensure that no untoward incident occurs. People are scared of the exercise and they don't know what will happen. The anxiety of common people can lead to unwanted tension and ministers should intervene immediately in case any law and order situation arises,” said another minister.

The CEO's office in Bengal held a series of meetings a day ahead of the rolling out of SIR.

“The CEO held a meeting with the district magistrates on Monday where the DMs were asked to look into all the minute details like distribution of enumeration forms to the BLOs. The main target is to roll out the exercise smoothly,” said a source in the CEO's office.

According to sources in the districts, the enumeration forms have been sent to the gram panchayat offices from where the forms would be handed over to the BLOs.

Each voter will get an enumeration form and a copy of it. “The BLOs would take the enumeration forms to the residences of the voters. A portion of the form would be pre-filled. The BLOs will help each voter to fill in the remaining portion of the form and take back the filled-up form. The copy of the form will stay with the voter for future reference,” said an official.

Officials also said that the BLOs would not take any paper from the voters.

Voters who have links with the 2002 post-SIR electoral rolls will also not be required to submit any paper.

“But those who don't have links with the 2002 rolls but have their names in the existing electoral rolls of 2025, these voters would be required to fill in the enumeration form. However, even they won't be asked to submit any paper to the BLO. Those who don't have links with the 2002 rolls will be asked to be present before the electoral registration officer for verification where they will be asked to submit required papers to establish their claim as a voter,” said another official.

The EC has requested all registered political parties to appoint booth-level agents who can visit the houses of the voters along with the BLOs to make the exercise smooth and transparent from November 4 across around 81,000 of the state.

“Till the last week, about 30,000 BLAs had been appointed by various political parties. It is expected that the number would go up by many folds as the parties have started appointing BLAs in the past few days,” said a source.