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Kolkata, Oct 28 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar Agarwal will chair an important all-party meeting on Tuesday at his office in central Kolkata on the Special Intensive Review (SIR) in the state.
It is being conducted after the announcement of the SIR by the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday.
It has been decided that this time there will be two-level all-party meetings on the SIR issue before the full-scale and grassroots exercise begins from November 4.
While the CEO will chair a state level all-party meeting with state leaders of all political parties in Kolkata during the day, similar all-party meetings will be held at the district level, chaired by the respective District Magistrate, who is also the District Election Officer.
After the all-party meeting, Aggarwal will brief the media on the outcomes of the state-level party meeting and answer other media queries on the SIR issue.
On Wednesday morning, the CEO will hold a virtual meeting with all the District Election Officers (DEOs), Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Booth-level Officers (BLOs) of the state.
During that meeting, the CEO is expected to give last-minute suggestions to his subordinate election officials on the procedures to be followed after the ground level vetting exercise starting from November 4.
SIR will be conducted in three phases. In the first phase, BLOs will reach door to door with counting forms and collect details of the concerned voters. The draft of the voter list in the state will be announced at the end of the first phase.
Then, in the second phase, any political party or individual voter will be able to register their complaints on the draft list, which will be addressed by the ECI.
Then, in the third and final phase, the EROs will resolve the complaints received from individual political parties or individual voters, after which the final voter list will be published.
The entire process is expected to be completed by March 2026. West Bengal, along with three other states and one union territory, is due to go to assembly elections next year.
The last time SIR was conducted in West Bengal was in 2002.
–IANS
Source/DPB