Resolve SIR pending cases in state before announcing Bengal polls: Congress

New Delhi, March 5 (IANS) The West Bengal Congress unit, on Thursday, urged the Election Commission to announce the state Assembly election schedule only after all pending cases related to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the state's electoral rolls are resolved. 

The state Congress has submitted a memorandum to the poll body seeking completion of the adjudication process for more than 60 lakh voters in the state before announcing the upcoming election. 

Addressing a press conference, Congress leaders said that the West Bengal voter's list, published on February 28 following a Supreme Court order, include 7,04,59,284 voters, of which 60,06,675, or around 8.5 per cent, have been marked to be under adjudication. 

Among the Congress leaders present were party's general secretary in-charge of West Bengal Ghulam Ahmad Mir, state unit president Subhankar Sarkar, MP Isha Khan Choudhury, Prasenjit Bose, state organisation general secretary Ashutosh Chatterjee, B.P. Singh, and Gorkha leader Munish Tamang. 

They voiced concern over a pattern of addition and removal of voters recorded during the SIR exercise, where against 9.64 lakh Form-6 and Form-6A applications for inclusion were received during the claims and objections period, only 1.82 lakh were admitted, implying rejection of about 7.82 lakh applications. 

On the other hand, the Congress leaders said that whereas about 99,000 Form-7 applications seeking removal of voter names were received during the same period, more than 5.46 lakh voters were deleted. 

Therefore, the Congress leaders alleged that around 4.47 lakh additional Form-7 applications were accepted after the claims and objections period during the SIR had already passed. 

The leaders also said that in its February 24 order, the Supreme Court had directed that supplementary lists be published as and when the pending exercise is completed. 

According to the Congress, noting the scale of the process and constraints recorded in the apex court's order, the adjudication process is expected to take several weeks. 

The leaders also said, quoting the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, that Section 24 allows voters excluded by Electoral Registration Officers to appeal before district election officers and the Chief Electoral Officer. 

However, Section 23 prohibits any inclusion in the electoral roll after the last date for filing nominations in an election, they added. 

Alongside, the Congress sought the Election Commission provide clear guidelines for appeal and re-enrolment process for eligible voters, if erroneously excluded from the list. 

They also noted that SIR exercises undertaken in Bihar and Tamil Nadu reflected significantly higher additions than removal of voters and asked the poll body to conduct a re-verification of all Form-6 and Form-7 applications before finalising the voter list for West Bengal.

--IANS

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