Kolkata, 20 February (H.S.) : Delays in document scrutiny during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal have raised concerns that more than one million voters could be excluded from the final list, sources associated with the process said on Thursday.

According to officials, over 444,970 voters’ documents have already been marked as “ineligible” by micro-observers appointed by the Election Commission, and the details have been forwarded for further action. In addition, documents of 466,323 voters are pending verification with district authorities.

Earlier, nearly 700,000 voters did not appear during the hearings conducted as part of the revision exercise. When combined with the number of ineligible documents, the total number of voters likely to be excluded from the final electoral roll could exceed one million, sources indicated.

The Commission had previously identified around 5.8 million voters as deceased, absent, or missing and removed their names from the draft roll. During the hearing phase, an additional one million-plus voters were identified, of whom nearly 700,000 failed to attend the hearings, while the remaining cases involved documents found to be ineligible.

Following directions from the Supreme Court of India, the Commission has announced that the final electoral roll for West Bengal will be published on February 28. However, officials acknowledged that substantial work remains pending. The deadline for document verification has been set for February 21. If pending cases are not resolved within the stipulated timeframe, publication of the final roll may be delayed.

Sources in the Chief Electoral Officer’s office indicated that if the process cannot be completed in time, the Commission may seek an extension.

During the hearings, voters submitted various documents, which are being scrutinized by micro-observers. According to Commission sources, documents of nearly three million voters have been returned to Electoral Registration Officers and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers for re-verification. Meanwhile, documents of around two million voters are still pending, with final decisions yet to be taken.

The Commission had earlier issued a list of 13 acceptable documents for the Special Intensive Revision and clarified that documents outside the prescribed list would not be accepted. This position was also upheld by the Supreme Court.

However, sources said that in certain cases, documents not included in the approved list were submitted and allegedly accepted, leading to confusion. Explanations may be sought from the officials concerned in this regard.

It is learnt that the remaining cases will be resolved after further consultations with the concerned authorities.

Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh