Kolkata, Dec. 22 -- The Election Commission, which began sending hearing notices to electors from Saturday, has already generated around 10 lakh such notices.
State Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal, on Monday, directed district electoral officers (DEOs) to complete the printing of all hearing notices within the next two days. The hearing process is scheduled to begin on December 27.
According to Commission sources, around 32 lakh unmapped voters will be called for hearings in the first phase. As a result, notices are being generated primarily in their names.
Electoral Registration Officers (EROs), who will conduct the hearings, have been asked to finalise venues in consultation with the DEOs. In urban areas, hearings may be held in municipal buildings, colleges and other government offices. In rural areas, hearings can be conducted at the offices of the district electoral officer or the block development officer (BDO). However, hearings will not be held at gram panchayat offices or similar local bodies.
Meanwhile, a three-member team from the Election Commission of India, comprising Principal Secretary S.B. Joshi and Deputy Secretary Abhinav Agarwal, is expected to arrive in the state by Tuesday to review the progress of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll.
The team will hold a series of meetings with officials associated with the revision exercise and is also likely to be present during the training programme for micro-observers scheduled at Nazrul Manch on Wednesday.
Notices have already been issued for the recruitment of 4,000 micro-observers, who will be tasked with overseeing the hearing phase of the SIR process in West Bengal.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.