Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal Manoj Agarwal has written to all district administrations directing District Election Officers to form teams of senior officers and conduct sample checking of all Form 6 disposals – which are used to add names to voters’ lists – made in the last year. The report is to be submitted to the CEO’s office by August 14.
In the letter, Agarwal stated: “It has been revealed during sample checking of disposal of forms received during continuous updation that in some cases provisions of the Registration of Electors’ Act, 1960 are not being followed.”
The letter further noted: “Sample checking of less than 1% Form 6 disposals by EROs during continuous updation has revealed that two (2) of them had accepted a considerable number of Form 6 for fictitious voters. In all these cases BLOs verification was dispensed with, without any apparent urgency/requirement and similar documents were captured for a large number of application forms and their verification reports. Both the EROs have since admitted that they had provided user access to the ERO next to the AERO/OC Election in BDO Office/ Casual Data Entry Operators who had thereafter disposed of the Form 6 applications.”
The CEO has also directed DEOs to ensure that OC Election staff in BDO offices and casual or daily-wage contractual data entry operators are not involved in the disposal of Forms 6, 7, or 8, or in carrying out any functions in ERONet.
Reacting to the letter, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari posted on X: “This latest memo from the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal to all the District Election Officers (DMs) exposes a scandalous betrayal of democracy.”
He said: “Fictitious Voters added to the rolls and unauthorized meddling by Casual Data Entry Operators IS THE DEPTH OF CORRUPTION UNDER MAMATA BANERJEE’S RULE. Booth Level Officers pressured to fudge records, Electoral Registration Officers handing over Voter Lists related jobs to unqualified hands is an assault on every citizen’s right to participate in a fair elections.”
Adhikari demanded an “immediate investigation and appropriate action against those responsible.”
Meanwhile, CEO Manoj Agarwal left for Delhi on Tuesday evening to meet Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. According to Commission sources, he will discuss when the special electoral roll revision in West Bengal should begin and what steps need to be taken before it starts.
The CEO’s office has already published data from the 2002 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengal, sparking speculation that the SIR may begin this August.
Training for BLOs also began last Saturday. Agarwal said the ECI will conduct SIR training in this session. “SIR may be held in future. Training will not happen again and again. The vote will be 6-8 months later. We will not be able to do these training [sessions] again,” he said.