The Election Commission has directed to stop personal hearings for those voters in West Bengal who were marked as “unmapped” during the ongoing special intensive revision of electoral rolls, but whose names or ancestral connections were present in the 2002 voter list, reported The Hindu on Sunday.
The direction was issued on Saturday as the state authorities found upon verification with the 2002 rolls that several voters or their children who were shown as “unmapped” on the poll panel’s central software were present in the area, The Indian Express quoted state officials as saying.
The state’s draft electoral rolls were published on December 16. It showed that more than 58 lakh voters were removed after being marked dead, shifted or absent. In addition, 31 lakh voters were “unmapped”, or not found on the 2002 rolls, when the last special intensive revision was held.
In a letter to district election officers, the West Bengal additional chief electoral officer said that several voters were marked “unmapped” as the 2002 electoral roll data had not been fully converted to plain text format, reported Hindustan Times.
Due to this, “linkage could not be fetched in BLO [booth-level officer] app in respect of many electors”, said the additional chief electoral officer.
The letter added that the state chief electoral officer had requested the poll panel to allow…
Source: West Bengal SIR: EC halts hearings for ‘unmapped’ voters whose names were present in 2002 rolls
