News Brief
West Bengal CEO Orders Urgent Review Of Voter Registration Forms Over Alleged Irregularities
(Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal has raised serious concerns over irregularities in the handling of voter registration forms, directing all District Election Officers to carry out an urgent review of Form 6 disposals within the next two weeks.
Election Commission's Form 6 is used to register new voters.
In a communication to all district election officers on Monday (28 July), the CEO revealed that a recent sample check of less than 1 per cent of Form 6 applications had exposed troubling lapses.
The scrutiny found that in at least two cases, EROs had “accepted a considerable number of Form 6 for fictitious voters. In all these cases BLOs verification was dispensed with, without any apparent urgency/requirement and similar documents were captured for a large number of application forms and their verification reports.”
According to the communication, two Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) admitted that they had allowed unauthorised access to the ERO network by staff in BDO offices and casual data entry operators, who subsequently disposed off the applications.
“Whilst appropriate action in these and other cases is being contemplated,” the CEO instructed district officials to set up senior teams and conduct a comprehensive check of Form 6 disposals undertaken over the past year.
The directive also stressed that contractual and daily‑wage data entry operators must not be engaged in the disposal of Forms 6, 7, or 8, nor in any ERONet duties.
The CEO underlined that the matter “may be treated as most urgent.”
Meanwhile, the Election Commission has announced plans to conduct a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across all states, following its rollout in Bihar.
The CEO’s communication is being viewed as a precursor to the SIR, which is expected to be carried out ahead of the Assembly elections in West Bengal next year.
