SIR in Bengal: ECI to summon voters with logical discrepancies from this week

Kolkata, Jan 6 As hearing session on claims and objections to the draft voters' list in West Bengal for the "unmapped" voters was almost complete, the Election Commission of India (ECI), from this week, will start summoning for hearing the "logical discrepancy" cases in the draft list which is 24 per cent of the voters' enlisted through "progeny mapping".

According to the figure provided by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, a total of 3.83 crore voters have been enlisted in the draft list through "progeny mapping", out of which 91.46 lakh are "logical discrepancy" cases.

This means that 24.02 per cent of the voters enlisted through "progeny mapping" are "logical discrepancy" cases, those having weird family-tree data, according to the sources in the CEO's office.

While the "self mapping" category of voters implied whose names were included in the voters' list in 2002, the "progeny mapping" category of voters was those whose parents' names were included in the 2002 list. The last time the SIR was conducted in West Bengal was in 2002.

The total number of "unmapped" voters in the state, whose hearing process is almost complete, stands at little over 32 lakhs. The "unmapped" voters are those whose names neither featured in the "self mapping" category nor in the "progeny mapping" category.

Although initially, at the end of the "enumeration phase, which was the first stage of the three-stage SIR exercise, the ECI had identified 1.36 crore "logical discrepancy" cases, currently the number has scaled down to 91.46 lakhs after thorough evaluation of the initial list.

Trinamool Congress had claimed that instead of clandestinely leaking information to the media persons about such "logical discrepancy" cases, the Commission should issue a formal release, giving the details of the matter.

The draft voters' list in West Bengal was published on December 16 last year. The final voters' list will be published on February 4. Soon after that, the commission will announce the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in West Bengal scheduled this year.

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