Hooghly, 28 February (H.S.):

The final voter list for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has been published in Hooghly district. On Saturday, the district administration convened an all-party meeting and District Magistrate Khurshid Ali Qadri handed over the list to representatives of all political parties.

According to the new list, before the SIR process began, the total number of voters in Hooghly district was 4,775,099. Following the draft list released in the first phase of the SIR, 3,18,853 voters were removed.

After the final list was published on February 28, it was revealed that the draft list contained 4,456,225 voters. Of these, a total of 15,932 names were removed. Thus, the total number of voters removed from the district, including the draft and final lists, is 3,34,785. The total number of voters in the district now stands at 4.44 million, 293.

However, the names of 173,064 of these voters are still in the adjudication process. Excluding these names, the number of valid voters in the district is currently estimated at 4.283 million.

On this occasion, District Magistrate Khurshid Ali Qadri said that approximately 30 to 32 judicial officers have been appointed for this process, who are verifying documents at scheduled times daily. The list will be published after the verification of the more than 173,000 names currently under scrutiny. He stated that approximately 4.4 million voters are currently on the list.

The District Magistrate also clarified that voter lists are not currently being made available at all polling booths, but the list has been handed over to all political parties. Voters whose names have been removed can apply to have their names added by filling out Form 6 before the election announcement. The work of adding and deleting names in the voter list will continue till the nomination process.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Priyanka Pandey