SIR in West Bengal: Training at ERO-level on September 16

Kolkata: The training programme for the forthcoming Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, starting from the Electoral Revision Officer (ERO) level, will begin at 2 a.m. Tuesday.

Sources in the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, said that the training process will start with a virtual meeting at 2 p.m. in the CEO’s office in Kolkata. It will be attended by all concerned to be involved in the forthcoming special intensive process in the state.

It is learnt that on Monday, the CEO of West Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, held a similar virtual meeting with electoral officers at different levels from all districts, during which they were updated on the area mapping.

Apart from that, the CEO office sources said that Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti is slated to arrive in Kolkata on Wednesday for the final review of the preparedness for the SIR in West Bengal.

The SIR in West Bengal, which is scheduled to go to Assembly polls next year, is expected to start in October, at the end of the forthcoming festive season, starting by the end of this month.

According to Bharti’s schedule in West Bengal on Thursday and Friday, he is expected to hold meetings with top officials at the CEO’s office, besides back-to-back video conferences with district-level electoral officers.

If necessary, CEO office sources said, he might also visit a couple of districts physically and directly interact with the electoral officers there.

Bharti is expected to go back to New Delhi on the evening of September 20 and thereafter submit a report on his findings to the office of the Chief Election Commissioner.

Since the beginning, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the ruling Trinamool Congress have been opposing the SIR in West Bengal.

According to her, the real intention behind SIR was aimed at “slapping the NRC and CAA in West Bengal”.

On the other hand, the BJP claimed that Trinamool Congress and Chief Minister Banerjee were opposing the SIR, fearing that names of many Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators (the “votebank” of Trinamool Congress) would be deleted from the electoral rolls.

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