Even as the ruling Trinamool Congress is set to intensify its campaign against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral roll, the Election Commission maintained that the exercise was going on smoothly and the draft voters’ list would be published on December 16.
Based on the trend of digitising the collected enumeration forms till Monday evening, the ECI has estimated that around 43.30 lakh names will be excluded from the draft voters' list. The final number might increase once the digitisation process is completed, reports said, quoting sources in the poll panel.
Among those whose name will be excluded from the list, 21.45 lakh are dead voters while the number of untraceable voters stands at around 5.5 lakh. Around 15.10 lakh voters have changed their place of living while a little less than one lakh voters have been found to be bogus or fake voters.
"The number of untraceable voters might change since some are 'untraceable' as yet might be traced in due course," an official in the CEO's office told IANS news agency.
West Bengal has a total of 7,66,37,529 as of October 27.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress has stepped up its anti-SIR offensive with Chief Minsiter Mamata Banerjee set to address rallies in three border districts.
Banerjee will hold a rally in Malda on December 3, Murshidabad on December 4 and Cooch Behar on December 9. These politically sensitive districts have sizeable minority, migrant and displaced populations.
Last week, the Trinamool supremo had addressed a public meeting in Bongaon in the refugee-dominated Matua belt.
The ruling party in the state has termed the SIR is a “completely unplanned, reckless and heartless” exercise which already led to the death of 40 people, including 17 Booth Level Officers.
On Friday, a delegation of Trinamool Congress MPs led by Derek O'Brien met Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar in Delhi to submit their grievances.
