EC publishes second supplementary voter list in Bengal

West Bengal’s second supplementary voters’ list was published around 11pm Friday.The poll panel, however, did not provide details on the total number of deletions or inclusions in the second list. “The second list has been published. We cannot divulge anything more,” an EC official said. Booth-wise lists were made available on the EC website around 11.30 pm, but the web pages containing data about deletions or inclusions could not be accessed due to some “technical glitches”, he said.
Copies will be displayed at polling stations and available with district election officers, DMs, SDOs and BDOs. Those who didn’t make the cut can appeal within 15 days, online or offline, before appellate tribunals. One more list is slated to be published on April 3. EC sources said 35-40% of those whose documents were examined by judicial officers had been disenfranchised.
TMC filed an appeal Friday before CJ Sujoy Paul of Calcutta HC, seeking daily publication of supplementary list. The party said the first list only had 749,863 names, although judicial officers had by then disposed of 27 lakh cases. There was no information on the remaining 20-odd lakh names, it said.
A total of 58 lakh names were deleted following the enumeration phase of the Special Intensive Revision exercise, slashing the state’s eligible electors from the initial 7.66 crore to 7.08 crore on grounds of death, migration, duplication and untraceability.
The post-SIR rolls published on February 28 further reduced the number of valid voters to just over 7.04 crore, including over 60 lakh names under judicial scrutiny. Polling for the 294-member West Bengal assembly will be held on April 23 and 29, with counting scheduled for May 4