Kolkata is buzzing with political tension as West Bengal’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter list nears its deadline. The Supreme Court has mandated the release of the final voter list by February 28, prompting the state’s Chief Electoral Officer, Manoj Agarwal, to assure timely compliance with unique additions.
Agarwal announced on Thursday that the final list will feature special markers: ‘Under Judicial Review’ for cases pending court decisions and ‘Deleted’ for removed entries. This ensures transparency amid the heated political debate. He noted that the total number of affected voters statewide stands at approximately 6,006,675.
In a parallel development, the Calcutta High Court has requested 200 judicial officers—100 each from Odisha and Jharkhand High Courts—to bolster the verification team handling ‘logical discrepancy’ cases. This decision emerged from a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Justice Sujoy Paul, attended by key officials including Agarwal, Chief Secretary Nandini Chakravarty, Acting DGP Piyush Pandey, Kolkata Police Commissioner Supratim Sarkar, and Special Roll Observer Subrata Gupta.
The SIR drive, a major Election Commission initiative to purify West Bengal’s voter rolls, has seen millions of claims and objections. Judicial interventions from both the Calcutta High Court and Supreme Court have accelerated the process. The apex court recently approved deploying these 200 officers to verify over 8 million claims efficiently.
If verifications aren’t completed by the deadline, the court directed issuing the final roll immediately, followed by a supplementary list integrated as part of it. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s plea to halt the process was rejected, allowing it to continue. BJP leaders hail it as essential cleansing of fake names, sharpening the pre-election battle lines.