Kolkata, Feb 8 (NationPress) The government of West Bengal has notified the Election Commission of India (ECI) that it is prepared to allocate 8,505 Group-B officers for the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the state's voter list, as per sources from the state secretariat on Sunday. A formal correspondence has already been sent to the ECI regarding this matter.

This update arrives just a day prior to the Supreme Court's scheduled hearing on the SIR case on Monday. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee may personally present the case once more, similar to her previous appearance. The number of Group-B officers available for the SIR initiative has been relayed to the Commission ahead of the hearing.

In the previous week, Mamata Banerjee represented the SIR case in the Supreme Court. During that session, the Commission's attorney indicated that the state had not supplied a sufficient number of Group-B officers for the SIR duties, leading to the need for officers from other states. Consequently, the court directed the state government to furnish a list.

A bench, including Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice Vipul Manubhai Pancholi, instructed the state to inform the Commission by Monday regarding the number of Group-B officers it could offer for the SIR roles. Following this directive, the information was relayed to the Commission on Saturday.

During the last hearing, Mamata Banerjee claimed that numerous voters were summoned for hearings related to the SIR due to minor spelling mistakes in their names or changes in surnames, asserting that this situation was causing undue distress to ordinary citizens.

The court emphasized that the Election Commission must guarantee that no individual's name is removed from the voter list due to trivial spelling errors. To mitigate this issue, the state was tasked with providing a list of officers proficient in Bengali.

The court remarked that deploying officers who are fluent in Bengali for the SIR tasks would resolve language- and spelling-related complications. In response, the Commission informed the court that the West Bengal administration had so far appointed only 80 ‘Grade-2’ officers for the SIR duties, which they deemed insufficient.

Alternatively, a significant number of lower-tier government employees, including Anganwadi workers, have been assigned to the task. However, Mamata Banerjee refuted the Commission’s assertion, stating that the state government has provided all necessary support for the SIR operations.