Kolkata, Oct 11 (IANS) Amid indications that the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal will start after October 15, the commission had made it clear that under no circumstances, its criteria regarding selection of electoral officers in the state, especially the booth-level officers (BLOs) and Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) should be compromised.

The ECI had sent a clear message to the West Bengal administration by sending a fresh communique to the office of the Chief Secretary, Manoj Pant, specifying the guidelines and criteria for the selection of electoral officers, especially BLOs and EROs, confirmed sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal.

In case of BLOs, the first preference should be given to the permanent state government employees, including the teaching staff in state-run schools.

As per the ECI mandates norms, the option of selecting contractual state government employees as BLOs could only be considered for any booth or any region in a district, in case of the absence of an adequate number of permanent state government employees.

However, before going for the option, the district magistrate, also the district electoral officers, will have to justify why the selection of contractual state government employees was necessary and also have to get the concurrence of the CEO.

The selection of EROs, as per ECI-mandated norms, should be done from officers in the West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS) – Executive cadre, and those officers should not be below the ranks of sub-divisional magistrates or sub-divisional officers, or rural development officers.

While the West Bengal unit of BJP had been complaining for quite some time about irregularities in the selection of BLOs, on Friday, the Leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, sought the attention of ECI regarding alleged irregularities in the selection of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs)

Adhikari pointed out that the seniority aspect of bureaucrats was ignored in many cases during the selection of the EROs.

Adhikari had also furnished a list of 226 such EROs, whose selection, according to him, was made ignoring the ECI-mandated guidelines. This malpractice, he added, has undermined the integrity of our electoral process.

–IANS

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