4 months ago
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Amid outrage among a conception of the electorate implicit aged and ailing voters being summoned for hearings nether the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) successful West Bengal, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has directed officials not to telephone specified electors — peculiarly those aged 85 years and supra — for carnal hearings.
In a notification issued connected Monday, the Additional Chief Electoral Officer asked each District Magistrates to guarantee that electors aged 85 years and above, arsenic good arsenic those ailing and persons with disabilities, are not required to look successful person. If notices person already been issued, officials person been instructed to interaction the electors implicit the telephone and transportation retired the verification astatine their residences.
Hearings for SIR began successful West Bengal connected December 27. Notices sent to a ample fig of aged persons arsenic good arsenic persons with disabilities, had created anguish among the people.
Earlier this week, the ECI issued caller instructions to territory predetermination officials (DEOs) successful the State not to summon for hearings those who person been identified arsenic ‘unmapped’ but whose names oregon ancestral connections are contiguous successful the 2002 elector list.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee connected Tuesday (December 30, 2025) questioned wherefore booth-level agents (BLAs) were not allowed during the SIR proceeding process. Protests erupted successful antithetic parts of the State implicit the request to let BLAs astatine the proceeding centres. On Monday, the proceeding was halted successful Hooghly district’s Chinsurah aft Trinamool Congress MLA Asit Majumdar objected to the exclusion of BLAs during the process.
Addressing a nationalist gathering successful Bankura, Ms. Banerjee said that the SIR was a immense “scam” being conducted with the assistance of artificial quality (AI). “They person allegedly utilized AI to delete 54 lakh names, falsely attributing these actions to Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). The ERO relation has sent letters saying they did not transportation retired this work,” she said. Ms. Banerjee threatened to gherao the Election Commission bureau successful Delhi if the names of morganatic voters are deleted during SIR successful the State.
