Kolkata, Dec. 10 -- The Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed the office of the Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to finalise booth-wise lists of electors categorised as Absent, Shifted or Dead/Duplicate (ASD), so that the exact status of each elector can be verified before publication of the draft electoral rolls.
According to the ECI, more than 13.74 lakh electors in Bengal are currently on the ASD list, having remained uncontactable even after three or more visits by Booth Level Officers (BLOs).
BLOs have now been asked to conduct a final verification based on the ASD list before the last date for submission and digitisation of enumeration forms, which ends on December 11 (Thursday). The District Electoral Officers (DEOs) and the CEO's office will begin ASD verification from Friday and will subsequently submit the updated list to the ECI.
Once the draft electoral roll is published, booth-wise, assembly-wise and district-wise ASD lists will be uploaded on the websites of the respective DEOs as well as the CEO's portal, and will also be available in an EPIC-searchable format. The ECI will decide who will be called for hearings.
"The biggest challenge lies in ascertaining the integrity of our existing database. The efficiency of BLOs is important given the large number of electors. Some BLOs have not done optional entries, which may lead to issues if enquiries are conducted later. Re-verification of the database will continue till December 15," an ECI official said.
State CEO Manoj Agarwal, along with senior officials of his office, held a meeting with Special and other Roll Observers to review the ongoing SIR activities in the state.
Over 7.65 crore enumeration forms - 99.86% of those distributed - have been digitised. Overall, 99.99% of the forms have been distributed, covering more than
7.66 crore electors.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.