ECI targets completion of SIR in West Bengal by February 7, with 7 lakh hearings daily

The Election Commission has set a target to complete the SIR work in West Bengal by February 7. 7,00,000 hearings will be conducted daily through 6,500 hearing centres.

The hearing on claims and objections to the draft voter list in West Bengal has been completed. With less than a month left for the final voter list to be released, the Election Commission has set a target of completing 7,00,000 hearings daily through 6,500 hearing centres spread across the state.

Each Officer to Hear 107 Cases

According to information received from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal, the commission believes that this work will be completed within the stipulated time. Electoral officials at each hearing centre will have to handle approximately 107 hearing cases daily. The deadline for hearing claims and objections on the draft voter list is February 7, after which the final voter list will be published on February 14.

Elections May Be Held in April

After the release of the final voter list, the Election Commission may announce the dates for the assembly elections. A few days ago, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while interacting with media persons in Kolkata, had said that voting and counting would be completed by the end of April.

Hearing Process for Unmapped Voters Almost Complete

According to the commission, the hearing process for unmapped voters is almost complete. Hearings for cases with logical discrepancies will be completed in the next few days. Unmapped voters are those who could not establish any link with the 2002 voter list through "self-mapping" or "progeny mapping". On the other hand, cases with "logical discrepancies" relate to voters whose cases showed strange family-tree data during "progeny mapping".

Verification and Authentication to be Done in Two Phases

The commission had earlier directed that the supporting identification documents provided by voters called for hearings would be verified and authenticated in two phases. The Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) will conduct the first phase of verification and authentication, and the District Magistrate, who is also the District Election Officer, will conduct the second phase of verification. The Commission had already clarified that domicile certificates issued by the state government and admit cards for the secondary examination conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education would not be considered as valid identification cards.