New Delhi, February 28 – The process to address "logical discrepancies" identified during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal has concluded, paving the way for the publication of the final voters' list on Saturday.
During the revision exercise, more than 58 lakh names, including those of deceased, duplicate, and shifted voters, were found eligible for deletion and excluded from the draft roll released in December.
The updated list will feature two additional categories, "under adjudication" and "deleted," alongside the names of verified voters.
West Bengal's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal told media persons on Thursday that the "under adjudication" category will include the names of those voters whose identity documents will continue to be under the adjudication process by the judicial officers appointed specially for the purpose, as per the order of the Supreme Court.
"In the final voters' list, this category of voters will be listed under the 'under adjudication' category," he said.
Sources indicate that supplementary lists will be published in due course, with the names of the "under adjudication" category voters, whose names will be cleared by the judicial officers during the adjudication process.
The third category in the final voters' list will be those voters who were excluded during the entire course of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, which began in November last year. The names of these excluded voters will appear in the final voters' list under the "deleted" category, Agarwal said.
Sources at the CEO's office said that these three categories in the final voters' list are aimed at making the entire system transparent and also to make voters aware of their respective positions. However, the Commission has yet to reach a final decision about many voters who have been categorized under the "logical discrepancy" category, which means the voters in whose cases unusual family-tree data was detected during the course of "progeny mapping".
There were 7.66 crore voters in West Bengal at the time of the announcement of the SIR. More than 58 lakh names were removed from that list, including those who were dead, absent, duplicate, or missing. The number of voters in the draft list published in December last year stands at 7.08 crore.
