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Kolkata, Nov 9 (IANS) The Election Commission of India has initiated action against Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in West Bengal for violation of prescribed norms and alleged gross irregularities related to the counting form for Special Intensive Revision.
To begin with, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, and sources in the Commission have filed FIRs against eight BLAs for allegedly interfering in the distribution of enumeration forms, taking possession of the forms from BLOs and distributing them themselves.
Also, the commission has sent show cause notices to eight BLOs who have allegedly adopted the shortcut process of distributing enumeration forms from a particular location, violating the norms set by the commission of going door-to-door for distribution of forms, sources in the CEO office said.
On Friday, the Commission has issued an ultimatum to such BLOs who have adopted such shortcut methods for distribution of calculation forms.
However, even after the Commission’s ultimatum, these eight BLOs were reported to have adopted the same shortcut route, following which the poll panel issued show cause notices to them.
Commission sources said that these eight BLOs are from Cooch Behar, North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts.
Sources in the CEO office said the Commission has once again directed the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) to keep a close watch on the activities of the BLOs during the vetting process, so that they perform their duties as per the ECI guidelines.
The Commission had once again cautioned BLOs against handing over the responsibility of calculation forms to any third party, be it a relative or a friend, or an acquaintance, and warned that such actions would be considered a serious breach of conduct.
ECI launched SIR in the state on Tuesday and over four crore enumeration forms were distributed till 8 pm on Saturday night.
“Considering the progress, we are hopeful that the process of enumeration form distribution will be completed before the end of this month,” sources in the CEO office said.
According to the voter list till October 27, the total number of voters in West Bengal is 7,66,37,529.
Voters whose names or their parents’ names were included in the voter list in 2002, the last time SIR was conducted in West Bengal, will need to include the details in the enumeration form and submit it.
These voters are not required to submit any other supporting documents to retain their name in the voter list. Earlier, SIR in West Bengal was conducted in 2002.
Voters whose names were not in the 2002 list or their parents will have to submit any one of the 11 documents specified by the commission to retain their name in the voter list.
–IANS
source/svn