Kolkata, February 17 – The current deadline of February 21 for completing the ongoing scrutiny of identity documents submitted during the hearing sessions on the draft voter list in West Bengal may be extended by two to three days, according to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).
Sources from the CEO's office stated that there are two main reasons for the possibility of extending the deadline for completing the scrutiny process.
The main reason is the large volume of "fake" and "unlisted" documents that have been uploaded to the system as proof of identity.
"Besides the uploading of documents other than the 13 listed by the Election Commission of India as authentic identity proof documents, there have been instances of newspaper cuttings, blank papers, and completely illegible documents being uploaded in the system. Therefore, filtering out these fake and unlisted documents is a very challenging task, and in view of this, the possibility of extending the deadline for completing the scrutiny process has emerged," said a source from the CEO's office.
At the same time, he added that the scrutiny of the documents already uploaded is underway, along with the uploading of documents submitted at the final stage of the hearing session, which concluded on February 14.
"If the uploading of documents had been completed on February 14 along with the hearing session, then the electoral officers could have focused solely on the scrutiny of documents, and in that case, the possibility of extending the deadline would not have arisen," said the source from the CEO's office.
The ECI has already identified five districts in the state where the instances of uploading "unlisted" documents have been abnormally high so far. These five districts are Cooch Behar, Malda, Murshidabad, North 24 Parganas, and South 24 Parganas. All five districts share international borders with Bangladesh, with South 24 Parganas mainly having coastal borders.
Besides these five districts, where instances of uploading "unlisted" documents are abnormally high, similar irregularities have also been marginally high in the districts of East Burdwan and West Burdwan.
According to the current schedule, the final voter list in West Bengal is to be published on February 28. On March 1, a full bench of the ECI will be visiting West Bengal for two days to assess the post-SIR situation. Shortly after that, the ECI will announce the dates for the Assembly elections in the state.
