Kolkata, Dec 8 (IANS) With just eight days left for the first stage of the three-stage Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal to end with the publication of the draft voters’ list on December 16, the Election Commission of India (ECI), on Monday appointed five additional special roll observers for the state.

With this fresh appointment, the total number of special roll observers appointed to review the ongoing revision exercise stands at 17. All five new special roll observers are serving Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) officers.

These five newly-appointed special roll observers are Kumar Ravi Kant Singh, Neeraj Kumar Bansod, Krishna Kumar Nirala, Aloke Tiwari, and Pankaj Yadav.

Insiders in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, in Kolkata, said that the new appointment is aimed at strengthening the supervision process in the second stage of the revision exercise, that will start after the publication of the draft voters’ list.

The second stage of the SIR exercise 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 Electoral Registration Officers (EROs)

After the second stage is over, the third and final stage, which is the publication of the final electoral roll, will be on February 14. Soon after the publication of the final electoral roll, the ECI is expected to announce the dates for the crucial Assembly elections in the state.

It is learnt that each of the five new special roll observers will be in charge of each of the five divisions in West Bengal, namely Presidency Division, Midnapore Division, Burdwan Division, Malda Division, and Jalpaiguri Division.

While the Presidency Division will be overseen by Kumar Ravi Kant Singh, Neeraj Kumar Bansod will supervise the Midnapore Division. The Burdwan Division will be supervised by Krishna Kumar Nirala.

The Malda and Jalpaiguri divisions will be supervised by Aloke Tiwari and Pankaj Yadav respectively.

With the digitisation of the enumeration forms almost complete, already over 56 lakh names have been identified as excludable from the voters’ list. These include dead voters, untraceable voters, shifted voters, duplicate voters, and those deemed to be removed for other reasons.

The ECI had already directed the electoral officers in the state to focus on minute ‘progeny’ mapping amid serious flaws being detected as regards to parents’ identities in the current voters’ list as on October 27.

“Progeny” mapping is done to determine whether the names of the parents of a voter on the current voters’ list match those on the 2002 list, the last time the SIR was conducted in West Bengal.

The total number of voters as per the list on October 27 is 7,66,37,529.

–IANS

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