Kolkata: Amid the exclusion of 58,20,899 voters’ names in the draft voters’ list in West Bengal published on December 16 — thus marking the completion of the first stage of the three-stage Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise in the state — and apprehensions that many more names could be excluded in the final voters’ list to be published on February 13 next year, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has convened a crucial meeting of booth-level agents (BLAs), including both BLA-1s and BLA-2s, in Kolkata on December 22.
While BLA-1s are in charge of individual Assembly constituencies, BLA-2s are responsible for the polling booths. The mega meeting will be held at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in central Kolkata.
Incidentally, on the same day, the now-suspended Trinamool Congress legislator from the Bharat Assembly constituency in minority-dominated Murshidabad district is scheduled to announce the name of his own political party and the office-bearers of the new outfit.
A senior party leader said that at the meeting at Netaji Indoor Stadium on December 22, the Chief Minister is expected to spell out detailed guidelines for the BLAs on their role during the hearing sessions on claims and objections relating to the draft voters’ list, which will constitute the second phase of the revision exercise.
Already on Tuesday, hours after the publication of the draft voters’ list, Mamata Banerjee held a meeting with BLAs from her own constituency of Bhabanipur in south Kolkata.
“In Tuesday’s meeting, the Chief Minister instructed the BLAs in Bhabanipur to recheck the names of the 44,700 excluded voters in that particular constituency, especially those of deceased and shifted voters. She also directed the BLAs to visit the addresses of such deceased and shifted voters and cross-check whether the information provided in the separate list of excluded voters is authentic or not. Now, at the meeting on December 22, she is expected to issue similar instructions to party BLAs across the state,” said a senior Trinamool Congress leader.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has also decided to focus on strict monitoring of the hearings on claims and objections, which are scheduled to begin next week. A Commission source said that, considering the large-scale anomalies in voters’ data being detected during the process of “progeny mapping”, the ECI is also considering conducting an audit of the proceedings of the hearings on claims and objections on a daily basis.
(IANS)
