SIR in Bengal: ECI mandates hearings on claims and objections exclusively at DM offices
SIR in Bengal: In the second stage of the three-stage Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office in West Bengal has been instructed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to hold hearings on the claims and objections solely at the offices of the District Magistrates, who are also the District Electoral Officers in question.
According to sources in the CEO’s office, the Commission has mandated that these hearings may never take place in the panchayat or block development offices.
Simultaneously, the ECI had mandated that the proceedings in this case be broadcast and that the recordings of those sessions be kept. All district magistrates and district electoral officials have been instructed to make all the required preparations for this count in accordance with the stringent directives from the Commission, according to sources in the CEO’s office.
The Commission has also instructed the state’s specially assigned roll watchers to use particular caution in order to guarantee that the hearings in this case take place in the District Magistrates’ offices.
The deadline for submitting and digitizing enumeration forms is Thursday. The first phase of the state’s three-stage SIR process will conclude on December 16 with the publication of the draft voters’ list.
Following the release of the draft voters’ list, the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) will concurrently carry out the second stage of the revision exercise, which entails filing claims and objections, and the notice phase, which includes issuance, hearing, verification, and decision on enumeration forms and disposal of claims and objections.
The publishing of the final electoral register will be the third and last step after the conclusion of the second stage. The dates for the important Assembly elections are anticipated to be announced by the ECI shortly after the final electoral register is published.
In order to find private housing complexes with many high-rise buildings that would be ideal for the installation of voting booths for the state’s important Assembly elections next year, the ECI had previously strongly objected to the fact that neither the district magistrates nor the DEOs had submitted a single proposal.
Additionally, the Commission mandated that all DEOs survey high-rise buildings, group housing societies, resident welfare association (RWA) colonies, slums, and gated societies with at least 250 houses or 500 voters as soon as the draft Electoral Roll was published on December 16. The survey should include information on ground floor rooms that are available and identify appropriate space for polling places on the premises.