Bengal SIR: Congress leader moves Supreme Court seeking data on voter additions, deletions

A Congress leader has moved the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Commission to disclose constituency-wise data on additions and deletions made during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal, Bar and Bench reported on Monday.

Prasenjit Bose, chairperson of the West Bengal Congress’ SIR committee, has also sought directions to make public the standard operating procedure governing appeals before appellate tribunals. Bose argued that there are no publicly available guidelines on appeals, documentation requirements, notices, hearings or timelines for disposal of cases, Bar and Bench reported.

In the petition, the Congress leader also sought constituency-wise data on Form 6 applications to add voters and Form 7 applications to remove voters, including how many were submitted, accepted and rejected during the claims and objections phase of the voter roll revision exercise.

More than 58 lakh electors were excluded during the enumeration phase of the exercise, but constituency-wise data on additions and deletions has not been released, according to the petition.

It stated that by January, more than 9.6 lakh applications seeking inclusion and 99,118 applications seeking deletion had been received. However, only 1.8 lakh additions were reflected in the final electoral rolls published on February 28.

The petition argued that the lack of detailed data, along with the non-publication of forms and...

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