Bengal SIR: Hearing sessions on claims/objections might be subjected to daily audits by ECI

Kolkata, Dec 17 With the draft voters' list being published on Tuesday, marking the end of the first stage of the three-stage Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has decided to focus on strict monitoring of the session on hearing and objections that will start from next week.

A commission source said that, considering the large-scale weird voters’ data being detected in the course of "progeny mapping", the ECI is also considering an audit of the proceedings of the hearing sessions on claims and objections on a daily basis.

"The idea is to detect the doubtful settlements made in the hearing session and refer back such doubtful settlements to the electoral registration officers (EROs) concerned for rechecking and if necessary, resettlement," the source said.

At the same time, the insider added, the commission had also decided to video-record the hearing sessions completely and, if necessary, do webcasting of the sessions. "The recorded videos will be reserved and examined to detect cases of doubtful settlements during the hearing sessions," he added.

He also said that ECI had also decided to conduct two-pronged monitoring of the hearing session, one by the special roll observers appointed by the commission to review the SIR exercise and the other by top ECI officials online directly from the commission’s headquarters in New Delhi.

The commission had also decided to appoint micro-observers for the second stage of the three-stage revision exercise, which will involve filing claims and objections, and the notice phase, which is issuance, hearing, verification, and decision on enumeration forms and disposal of claims and objections, to be done concurrently by the EROs.

Thereafter will come the third and final stage of the revision, which will be the publication of the final voters’ list on February 14 next year.

Soon after the publication of the final voters' list, the ECI will announce the dates for the crucial Assembly elections scheduled next year.

The revision exercise in the state started on November 4.

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