As polls knock, why is Bengal’s SIR in a state of chaos with no end in sight?
· Scroll
On Saturday, the Election Commission of India published the electoral roll for West Bengal three weeks after its original deadline to do so had lapsed. This list excluded over 61 lakh voters.
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But the special intensive revision is still not over in the state. The fate of 60 lakh voters hangs in the balance as they have been placed in a new “under adjudication” category.
The prolonged special intensive revision process has led to fears of disenfranchisement and even disorder in West Bengal. Scroll tracks the chaotic nature of the Bengal SIR and explains how matters have reached such a stage that even Assembly elections are now under question as the state still does not have a final electoral roll.
Uncertainty and chaos
It is unclear how many of the 60 lakh voters, who the Election Commission has labelled as “under adjudication”, will be allowed to vote in the upcoming polls, if at all. At a news conference on Saturday, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, the chief electoral officer of West Bengal, simply said their “cases are not in our jurisdiction now”.
Ordinarily, the state would have been gearing up for Assembly elections by now. But the Election Commission has not even announced the timeline for it so far.
The term of the current Assembly ends on May 7....