SIR hearing on hold over deletion fears

WITH OFFICIALS IN West Bengal flagging what they said were possible large-scale “system driven” deletion of electors during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the office of the state’s Chief Electoral Officer has directed that all personal hearings for voters marked as “unmapped”, or not found in the 2002 electoral roll, by the Election Commission’s software be put on hold until further verification.

- ATRI MITRA, DAMINI NATH & RITIKA CHOPRA

The pause applies only to electors flagged as not found by the EC’s central software but who were then found present on the hard copies of the 2002 rolls.