The Election Commission of India (ECI) is all set to conduct thorough verifications of electoral rolls during inclusion of voters, hardly nine months ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled in April-May in 2026 in West Bengal.
Manoj Kumar Agarwal, chief electoral officer (CEO) in the state, has written to district magistrates (DMs) as well as district electoral officers (DEOs), on 28 July to form a team of senior officers in their respective districts to verify all Form 6 disposals done during the past one year to find out fictitious voters in electoral rolls.
He has also asked them not to involve personnel like the OC Election, casual and daily wages contractual data entry operators in disposal work of Form 6, 7 and 8.
Sources in the CEO office said a large number of fictitious voters were found in the electoral rolls in South 24-Parganas and Malda respectively during thorough updation of inclusion forms as per provisions of Representation of Electors’ Act, 1960.
The irregularities prompted the CEO to issue the directive to the DEOs.
“This is to inform you that it has been revealed during sample checking of disposal of forms received during continuous updation that in some cases provisions of Representation of Electors’ Act, 1960 are not being followed,” Mr Agarwal’s letter states.
“Sample checking of less than 1 per cent Form 6 disposals by EROs (electoral registration officer) during continuous updation has revealed that two (2) of them had accepted a considerable number of Form 6 for fictitious voters. In all these cases BLOs verification was dispensed with, without any apparent urgency/requirement and similar documents were captured for a large number of application forms and their verification reports. Both the EROs have since admitted that they had provided user access to the ERO net to the AERO/OC Election in BDO office/casual data entry operators, who had thereafter disposed of the Form 6 applications,” according to the letter.
“Whilst appropriate action in these and other cases is being contemplated, district election officers are hereby directed to form a team of senior officers and have the sample checking of all Form 6 disposals done during the last one year and send a report to the undersigned by 14 August, positively,” the CEO directs the DEOs through his letter.
He has also directed the DEOs not to involve personnel like the OC Election, casual and daily wages contractual data entry operators in disposal work of Form 6, 7 and 8 or for the discharge of any of the functions in EROnet.