Kolkata, Jan 23 The West Bengal unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to identify the booth-level officers (BLOs), electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) accused of deliberately refusing acceptance of Form-7 applications in genuine cases and submit the list of erring electoral officers to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Form-7 applications are meant for the deletion of names of deceased, duplicate, and shifted voters, among others, from the voters’ list.
According to BJP’s state president in West Bengal and the party’s Rajya Sabha member, Samik Bhattacharya, the reluctance to accept Form-7 applications started in the enumeration stage, which is the first level of the three-stage Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, when many BLOs deliberately acted on the behest of the ruling Trinamool Congress and refused to accept Form-7 applications.
That is why, according to him, several names of deceased, duplicate, and shifted voters were retained in the draft voters list, which was published on December 16 last year.
Now, he added, in the second phase of the revision exercise, which is hearing on the claims and objections on the draft voters’ list, the same thing is happening where the BLOs, along with a section of the EROs and AEROs, are not accepting the Form-7 applications in genuine cases.
“The entire idea is to ensure that the names of a large number of deceased, duplicate, and shifted voters are retained in the final voters’ list, so that false voting could be done against their names on the polling date,” Bhattacharya said.
"We are identifying such electoral officers. We have also identified some West Bengal Civil Service officers. Some of them still have 15 to 18 years of service left. We also know their addresses. Actions will surely be taken against them," Bhattacharya said.
Trinamool Congress leadership, however, has claimed that the actual intention of the BJP is to submit Form-7 applications in bulk so that names of genuine voters are deleted in the final voters’ list.
The scheduled date of publication of the final voters’ list is February 14. However, there is an indication from the ECI that the deadline might be extended. Shortly after the publication of the final voters’ list, the Commission is expected to announce the polling dates for the Assembly elections in West Bengal scheduled later this year.
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