Kolkata, February 26 – The final voter list in West Bengal, which will be published on February 28, will include names under two additional categories: "under adjudication" and "deleted", in addition to those listed as genuine voters of the state.
This means that the names in the final voter list will be categorized under three headings.
Manoj Kumar Agarwal, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, told media persons on Thursday evening that the "under adjudication" category will include the names of voters whose identity documents are still being processed by judicial officers appointed specifically for this purpose, as per the order of the Supreme Court.
"In the final voter list, this category of voters will be listed under the 'under adjudication' category," he said.
It has been learned that supplementary lists will be published in due course, including the names of voters in the "under adjudication" category, whose names will be cleared by the judicial officers during the judicial process.
The third category in the final voter list will be those voters who were excluded during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, which began in November last year.
The names of these excluded voters will appear in the final voter list under the "deleted" category, Agarwal said.
Sources in the CEO's office said that these three categories in the final voter list are aimed at making the entire system transparent and also to inform voters about their respective positions.
However, the Commission has not yet made a final decision on 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 "progeny mapping" process.
At the time of the announcement of the SIR, there were 7.66 crore voters in West Bengal. More than 58 lakh names were removed from that list, including those who were deceased, absent, duplicate, or missing. The number of voters in the draft list published in December last year stands at 7.08 crore.
Now, it remains to be seen how many voters already identified under the "logical discrepancy" category will finally be deleted.