West Bengal's Election Commission Aims for 700,000 Hearings Daily Ahead of Voter List Finalization
Kolkata's Voter Registration Push
Kolkata: With the deadline approaching for the hearings on claims and objections regarding the draft voters' list in West Bengal, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has established an ambitious goal of conducting 700,000 hearings each day across 6,500 centers statewide.
Officials believe this target is feasible, as electoral officers at each center will need to manage approximately 107 cases daily, according to sources from the Chief Electoral Officer's office in West Bengal.
The hearings for claims and objections must conclude by February 7, with the final voters' list set to be published on February 14.
Following the release of the final list, the ECI is anticipated to announce the polling dates for the significant Assembly elections scheduled for later this year.
Recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah mentioned during a media interaction in Kolkata that the polling and counting processes are expected to be completed by the end of April.
The ongoing hearings for 'unmapped' voters are nearing completion, and the 'logical discrepancy' cases will be addressed next week.
Unmapped voters are those who could not establish a connection through either 'self-mapping' or 'progeny-mapping' with the 2002 voters' list, which was the last revision conducted in West Bengal.
Conversely, 'logical discrepancy' cases involve voters with unusual family-tree data identified during 'progeny mapping'.
The Commission has mandated a two-stage verification process for the identity documents submitted by voters called for hearings.
Electoral registration officers (EROs) will handle the initial verification, while District Magistrates, serving as District Electoral Officers, will oversee the second stage.
It has been clarified that domicile certificates issued by the state government and Madhyamik admit cards from the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education will not be accepted as valid identity proof.