35–40% of 3.2 million names adjudicated not in West Bengal SIR list

KOlkata: Around 35% to 40% of the 3.2 trillion cases of “logical variance” below the special intensive rescript (SIR) adjudicated by juridic officers in West Bengal by Wednesday were deleted from the electoral roll list, senior Election Commission officials said.In all, more than six million voters’ claims were sent to judicial officers appointed by the Calcutta high court for adjudication. EC officials said around 2.9 million cases were disposed of by the judicial officers till March 23.Only around one million names were uploaded in the first supplementary list published late on Monday night, said a senior official. The release, close to midnight, was followed by widespread chaos as people reported technical glitches, including the failure to load the roll, and every voter in the state marked as “under adjudication” for a few hours.EC has still not given out consolidated numbers of how many people failed the adjudication in the first supplementary list.Also read: SIR done smoothly in all states, except Bengal: SCThe poll panel is likely to publish a second supplementary list on Friday. EC officials said the poll panel has approached the Calcutta high court so that supplementary lists can be published daily.“Of the 3.2 million cases that have been adjudicated till Tuesday night, around 35–40% names have been deleted. Around one million names, which were e-signed by the judicial officers, were uploaded in the first supplementary list released on March 23,” said a senior EC official.This deletion is in addition to the 6.18 million names already dropped from the final electoral roll published on February 28. The ruling Trinamool Congress and its archrival Bharatiya Janata Party, meanwhile, sharpened their attacks against each other over SIR and deletion of names.“Yesterday every voter in the electoral roll was suddenly sent under adjudication. I checked my name on the voters’ list and found that it was also under adjudication,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee said while addressing a political rally at Naxalbari in north Bengal. Banerjee said she heard that around 8,00,000 names were dropped from the first supplementary list.Also read: Confusion surrounds first supplementary list of SIR in West BengalEC, however, clarified that there were some technical glitches and the poll panel’s website was temporarily hacked.“Yesterday our site was hacked. There were some technical glitches. It has been resolved and is working now. One can check their names now,” Manoj Kumar Agarwal, chief electoral officer of West Bengal told reporters on Wednesday.“They are now saying their site was hacked. Does anyone have the guts to hack the EC’s website? Was it hacking or your technical wickedness? You have let the people know,” Banerjee said.Senior BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari said that around 7.9 million “fake” names were removed from the state’s electoral rolls after SIR, while claiming that this would help the BJP secure more than 177 seats in the coming elections. He added that of the 3.2 million voters who were adjudicated, around 1.4 million names were deleted.“So far, 7.9 million names from the contaminated voters list have been removed. Around 90 per cent of these fake voters used to cast their votes in favour of the TMC,” Adhikari said while addressing a rally in East Midnapore.