West Bengal SIR: SC mandates hearing for discrepancies across 294 constituencies

Kolkata: The fresh hearing of Logical Discrepancies/unmapped cases, as directed by the Supreme Court, will be conducted in all 294 assembly Constituencies and the exact number of Logical Discrepancies/ unmapped will emerge after verification till Saturday midnight, West Bengal CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal said on Saturday after the high-level meeting with Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, Chief Secretary, DGP and all other senior officials.

Following Supreme Court order, West Bengal CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal held a meeting high-level meeting with Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court Sujay Paul, chief secretary Nandini Chakraborty, DGP, in the presence of the advocate general Kishore Dutta and additional solicitor general Ashok Kumar Chakraborty on Saturday to work out the modalities of the apex court order. SC had directed the Calcutta High Court to depute judicial officers for the SIR process in Bengal, to resolve the Logical Discrepancies/unmapped cases in a time bound manner.

It has been decided in the meeting that district and assembly-wise data will be released of all 294 Constituencies by the Election Commission to the stake holders and if necessary, ECI, New Delhi will provide all necessary data, West Bengal CEO Manoj Kumar Agarwal said.

CEO reiterated that no genuine voters will be deleted. The exact number of cases going for hearing can only be decided after verification of data till today midnight.

“District-wise and Assembly constituency-wise statistics will be shared as part of the ongoing electoral exercise, CEO said on Saturday. The move is aimed at ensuring greater transparency in the process. The process of disposal of pending matters will continue till late tonight.

Central force deployment

The Centre to deploy 480 companies of Central Forces in two phases ahead of West Bengal assembly polls. The Union Home Ministry, in a letter to the State Chief Secretary, Home Secretary and the Director General of Police, informed about the deployment of central armed police forces in the state ahead of the elections. A total of 480 companies of central forces will be deployed in two phases to ensure peaceful and smooth conduct of the polls.
In the first phase, over 240 companies of CRPF, CISF, BSF, ITBP, and SSB will be deployed in Bengal on 1 March, and the remaining 240 companies will be deployed on 10 March.This will include 110 companies of the CRPF, 55 companies of the BSF, 21 companies of the CISF, 27 companies of the ITBP and 27 companies of the SSB.