Kolkata: The draft electoral roll for KMC elections will be published on Monday, providing citizens with an idea of their ward and booth numbers for the first time after the delimitation exercise, which has pushed up the total number of civic wards from 144 to 209. Political parties, too, will get a clearer idea of the revised ward boundaries and the number of voters in each ward.“The draft roll will be published on Oct 26. Anyone can raise claims or objections between then and the publication of the final rolls on Nov 12. It is a statutory requirement to give this time,” said a senior state official. The South 24 Parganas district magistrate will meet all political parties on Oct 27, a day after the draft roll is published, and will hand them over copies of the draft roll and a draft of proposed polling stations.The sub-divisional officer (SDO), Alipore, who has been appointed as the municipal electoral registration officer, will publish the electoral rolls, which will be issued part- or booth-wise, mentioning the wards in which each booth will be located. The municipal elections in Kolkata are likely to be held in the last week of Nov and the notification will possibly be issued by Oct-end.Around 85,000-odd appeals from Kolkatans before the SIR appellate tribunals have been pending. A state official said thousands, whose names were deleted from the voters’ list following SIR ahead of the assembly elections, were unlikely to be able to make it to the voters’ list before the KMC elections either. TOI had reported that the adjudication of SIR appeals in Bengal hit a roadblock with tribunal judges refusing to log into the new portal introduced by ECI on Sept 21 using their Aadhaar credentials. The 13 SIR tribunal judges, hearing appeals against exclusion of names during SIR, have objected to the portal’s inability to accept documents beyond 13 items. The judges wrote to ECI.“The KMC polls will be held based on electoral rolls of July 1. But any additions or deletions till the last date of nomination will be reflected in the electoral roll. Voters whose names are added till the last date of nomination will be able to vote. These names will be added in supplementary rolls,” said an official.Ashutosh Chatterjee, general secretary of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, said it was extremely unfortunate that the KMC elections would be held, denying nearly 1 lakh citizens their right to vote. “The EC should have made arrangements to decide the cases of appeals pending before tribunals,” he said. The Congress has written to the Bengal CEO, asking to publish the count of Form 6 filed during the special drive for enrolling voters.
