No SIR in Bengal without Mamata’s nod, claims Trinamool MP

Kolkata: Actress-turned-politician and the Deputy Leader of Trinamool Congress’s Parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha, Shatabdi Roy, said on Wednesday that there will be no Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal without being given the go-ahead by the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee.

“The Chief Minister had already said that there will be no SIR in West Bengal. She does what she says,” said Roy.

The preparatory work for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is already underway in the state.

Roy, the four-time Lok Sabha member from Birbhum constituency, did not clarify how a Chief Minister of any state or any state government can stop the SIR, considering that the revision is a periodic exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The last time that the SIR was conducted in West Bengal was in 2002. Currently, the task for “mapping & matching” the names of the voters in the current voters’ list with those in 20022 is at the final stage.

The ECI has already directed the district magistrates, who are also the district electoral officers, and the additional district magistrate (elections) to complete the “mapping and matching” process within this week, following which the notification for the SIR will be announced.

The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, clarified last week that the existing voters whose names were there in the voters’ list in 2022, when the last SIR in West Bengal took place, will be automatically considered as valid voters.

Those not having names in the list for 2022 will have to submit any of the documents as citizenship proof, as mandated by the commission.

But in this case, only an AADHAR card will not be enough, and the voter concerned will need one of the other documents as mandated by the commission.

IANS