Election Commission of India aims to hold 700,000 hearings daily in Bengal SIR to finish process by Feb 7.

Kolkata: The Election Commission of India is gearing up for the finalization of the voters' list in West Bengal. With only a month left for the completion of the hearings on claims and objections to the draft list, the Commission has set a target to complete 7,00,000 hearings a day. This will be achieved through 6,500 hearing centers spread across the state. According to sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, the Commission believes that this target is not impossible to reach. Each electoral officer at a hearing center will handle approximately 107 hearing cases per day. The deadline for the hearings is February 7, after which the final voters' list will be published on February 14. Once the final voters' list is published, the ECI will announce the polling dates for the crucial Assembly elections in the state, which are expected to take place later this year. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, during a recent press interaction in Kolkata, stated that the polling and counting will be completed by the end of April. The ongoing process of hearing the "unmapped" voters is almost complete, and the cases of "logical discrepancy" will be heard next week. "Unmapped" voters are those who were unable to establish any link with the voters' list from 2002, the last time the revision exercise was conducted in West Bengal. On the other hand, "logical discrepancy" cases relate to voters with strange family-tree data found during the verification process. To ensure the authenticity of the supporting identity documents provided by the summoned voters, the Commission has directed for a two-stage verification and authentication process. The first stage will be conducted by the electoral registration officers, while the second stage will be conducted by the District Magistrates, who are also District Electoral Officers. The Commission has also made it clear that domicile certificates issued by the state government and admit cards of the Madhyamik examination will not be considered as valid identity-proof documents. With the ECI's efficient planning and coordination, the completion of 7,00,000 hearings a day through 6,500 hearing centers seems feasible. The Commission is determined to ensure a fair and accurate voters' list in West Bengal before the upcoming Assembly elections.