SIR: Leaders of the ruling party in West Bengal are panic stricken after figures of voter deletions from the draft roll were released under Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by the Election Commission of India.
In many constituencies of the state, the number of SIR deletions is likely to outnumber or run extremely close to the winning margins of the TMC’s candidates in the last elections.
Many believe that the proposed deletions can at least make the contest a very likely close fight or cause a major upset since many of the ghost voters seem to favour the TMC.
What Happens After SIR?
The list includes the names of marquee West Bengal’s assembly constituencies which are represented by Trinamool heavyweights like Mamata Banerjee, the party’s Muslim face Firhad Hakim, IT Minister Babul Supriyo, Education Minister Bratya Basu, and Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, apart from long-term MLA Nayana Bandyopadhyay.
Voters whose names are likely to disappear are those under the “uncollectible” category that means there were issues with their enumeration forms because they were dead, could not be traced, absent or were duplicate voters.
The Election Commission’s report disclosed that 11.5 lakh electors across 25 Assembly segments will have their names struck off from the draft list. The highest number of voter dropouts was seen in the Chowringhee Assembly constituency (74,553) followed by Shyampukur (72,900) and Ballygunge (65,171). Bhowanipore, which happens to be the constituency of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, will see 44,787 voters being struck off from the draft list.
According to media reports, TMC has specifically told its local leaders to contest these figures at the hearings that will start after December 16. Meanwhile, the party has already initiated efforts to bring back voters who were not in the city when the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) visited their residences.
