Court restores 1,468 votes in West Bengal, removes 6 names in second phase

KOLKATA: A Supreme Court-mandated appellate tribunal hearing the voter deletion case during the electoral roll SIR of the West Bengal Election Commission restored the voting rights of 1,468 people ahead of the second phase of polls on Wednesday, taking the total number of persons restored in the state to 1,607 for the two rounds of polls, officials said on Tuesday.The number of expungements in the second stage was 6, bringing the total number of expungements by the court to 14. Sources in the EU said that the six persons who were deleted can seek relief from the Kolkata HC or SC. Ahead of the first leg on April 23, 139 people had been reinstated into the squad. The 115:1 repair-to-removal ratio enhances the scrutiny of this work.SIR slashed Bengal’s electorate from Rs 76 crore to Rs 682 crore. Officials blamed the removal of many of the 294 seats on voter deaths, absences or transfers. The roll revision disenfranchised 2.7 million people based on “logical differences,” including misspellings, mismatched surnames and atypical custody records during judicial decisions.

“The court included 1,468 voters who were removed during the adjudication process and excluded 6 voters that the judicial officials had earlier included during the adjudication process. All 1,468 voters can vote on Wednesday,” Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal said.European Commission sources said those whose rights were upheld had been informed. The public list contains names of voters, EPIC details, parts and serial numbers, ward, assembly constituency and contact details of booth-level officials. Kolkata South District has the highest number of inclusions at 677 stones, followed by Kolkata North District with 596 stones. Other new additions include Howrah 77, Nadia 39, North 24 Parganas 34, South 24 Parganas 30, East Burdwan 8 and Hooghly 7.With the latest inclusion, the EC said there will be more than 320 million voters in the 142 constituencies that went to polls on Wednesday. The deletions triggered appeals by more than 3.4 million people to 19 tribunals set up under Supreme Court orders.