A Congress leader has moved the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Commission to disclose constituency-wise data on additions and deletions made during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal, Bar and Bench reported on Monday.
Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of the West Bengal Congress’ SIR committee, has also sought directions to make public the standard operating procedure governing appeals before appellate tribunals. Bose argued that there are no publicly available guidelines on appeals, documentation requirements, notices, hearings or timelines for disposal of cases, Bar and Bench reported.
In the petition, the Congress leader also sought constituency-wise data on Form 6 applications to add voters and Form 7 applications to remove voters, including how many were submitted, accepted and rejected during the claims and objections phase of the voter roll revision exercise.
More than 58 lakh electors were excluded during the enumeration phase of the exercise, but constituency-wise data on additions and deletions has not been released, according to the petition.
It stated that by January, more than 9.6 lakh applications seeking inclusion and 99,118 applications seeking deletion had been received. However, only 1.8 lakh additions were reflected in the final electoral rolls published on February 28.
The petition argued that the lack of detailed data, along with the non-publication of forms and formats prescribed under the Election Commission’s 2024 Electoral Rolls Manual, has raised concerns about the transparency and accountability of the revision process.
It also questioned the examination of more than 60 lakh cases flagged for “logical discrepancies”, such as age gaps between parents and children, and name mismatches.
Bose also referred to a West Bengal government notification linked to the Annapurna Yojana welfare scheme, under which people removed from electoral rolls would no longer be eligible for benefits unless they had filed appeals before the SIR tribunals.
The petition noted that wrongful deletion from electoral rolls could affect access to welfare benefits as well as voting rights.
On May 27, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that about 30 lakh beneficiaries of Lakshmi Bhandar, a cash transfer scheme for women implemented by the previous Trinamool Congress government, were ineligible for it because they had either been deleted from the voter rolls after the special intensive revision, or they had not applied for citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The remarks came weeks after Women and Child Development Minister Agnimitra Paul said on May 12 that women whose names were deleted during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls will not receive benefits of the Annapurna Bhandar scheme, which is set to replace the Lakshmi Bhandar programme from June 1.
Bose’s petition also cited an analysis of the West Bengal Assembly election results, claiming that in 82 constituencies won by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the number of additions and deletions made during the electoral roll revision exceeded the eventual margin of victory, The Tribune reported.
Scroll’s analysis of the Assembly election results in West Bengal also found that in half the seats that the BJP won, the total deletions that took place during the voter list revision exercise outnumbered the victory margin.
While the BJP won 208 seats in the 294-member Assembly, the Trinamool Congress won 80.
Ahead of the elections, the final electoral rolls for the state published in February initially excluded more than 61 lakh voters, with the process continuing through supplementary lists and adjudication of about 60 lakh “doubtful and pending” cases.
By April 6, about 91 lakh voters, nearly 11.9% of the electorate before the process began, had been removed.
Nearly 25 lakh cases challenging their removal from the voter list are pending before appellate tribunals, according to The Indian Express. Till mid-May, 12 out of the 19 tribunals had only disposed of 6,581 of these appeals, or 0.26% of the cases, the newspaper reported.
Bose’s petition came days after the Supreme Court on May 27 upheld the constitutional validity of the SIR process undertaken by the Election Commission, saying that it “advances the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections”.
Edited by Tanya Shrivastava.
Also read: Three reasons why West Bengal’s SIR exercise was unconstitutional
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