SIR in Bengal: ECI wants strict level-wise monitoring, supervision in districts

Kolkata, Oct 9 (IANS) Amid indications of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in West Bengal starting after October 15, the commission has directed the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the state to ensure strict level-wise monitoring of the system, especially in the districts.

The instruction on this count was given at a crucial meeting at the CEO’s office in Kolkata on Wednesday, which was chaired by the Deputy Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Bharti, other members of the central ECI team who are on a two-day visit to the state, the CEO, West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, his subordinate officers in the CEO’s office and senior district-level electoral officers.

An insider from the CEO’s office, aware of the development at the meeting, said that the central ECI team also outlined the procedure of level-wise monitoring of supervision.

“The forms and applications processed by a Booth-Level Officer (BLOs) will have to be examined by the Assistance Election Returning Officers (AEROs) and finally cleared by the Election Returning Officers (EROs). At the district level, the Additional District Magistrates (election) and District Magistrates, who are also district election officers, will be supervising the entire process,” the CEO’s office insider said.

It is learnt that the central ECI team also issued a latent caution that any major lapse in carrying out the commission-mandated procedure in the SIR process might lead to disciplinary action against the electoral officers concerned, as it happened in the case of Bihar, where the review process had been completed.

To recall, earlier this year, a couple of EROs and AEROs were suspended by the commission for severe lapses in vetting of applications for enrolment in the voters’ list.

Wednesday’s meeting was also attended by ECI’s Director General (Information Technology), Seema Khanna, who specially stressed on the BLOs making increasing use of technology while carrying out their processing assignments in the revision process.

“She especially stressed the use of the Apps introduced by the commission for the revision purpose. She said that increasing use of technology in the revision will bring more transparency in the process,” the CEO’s office insider said.

At the same time, the central ECI team specially stressed maintaining the SIR records digitally to avoid complications following loss or misplacement of related paper documents. The last time that SIR was conducted in West Bengal was in 2022.

--IANS

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