New Delhi, March 5 (NationPress) The Congress unit of West Bengal has officially called on the Election Commission to delay the announcement of the state Assembly election timetable until all unresolved issues concerning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls are settled.

The state Congress has presented a memorandum to the electoral body, advocating for the finalization of adjudication for over 60 lakh voters within the state prior to the declaration of the forthcoming election.

During a press conference, Congress representatives expressed that the West Bengal voter's list, released on February 28 following a Supreme Court directive, indicates a total of 7,04,59,284 voters, with 60,06,675—approximately 8.5%—currently under adjudication.

Present at the conference were notable Congress figures, including the party's general secretary responsible for West Bengal, Ghulam Ahmad Mir, state president Subhankar Sarkar, MP Isha Khan Choudhury, Prasenjit Bose, state organization general secretary Ashutosh Chatterjee, B.P. Singh, and Gorkha leader Munish Tamang.

They raised alarms regarding the method of adding and removing voters that was observed during the SIR process. Out of 9.64 lakh applications submitted for inclusion via Form-6 and Form-6A during the claims and objections phase, only 1.82 lakh were accepted, suggesting a rejection rate of about 7.82 lakh applications.

Conversely, while around 99,000 Form-7 applications requesting the deletion of voter names were submitted in the same timeframe, over 5.46 lakh voters were removed from the list.

The Congress leaders contended that approximately 4.47 lakh additional Form-7 applications were approved after the claims and objections period had concluded during the SIR.

Furthermore, they referenced the Supreme Court's February 24 order, which mandated the publication of supplementary lists once the ongoing exercise is completed.

According to Congress, given the magnitude of the process and the limitations highlighted in the Supreme Court's ruling, the adjudication procedure is predicted to require several weeks to finalize.

The leaders also cited provisions from the Representation of the People Act, 1950, indicating that Section 24 enables voters excluded by Electoral Registration Officers to appeal to district election officers and the Chief Electoral Officer.

However, they noted that Section 23 restricts any inclusions in the electoral roll after the final date for filing nominations in an election.

Additionally, the Congress requested that the Election Commission provide explicit guidelines regarding the appeal and re-enrollment process for eligible voters who may have been mistakenly excluded from the voter list.

They pointed out that SIR exercises conducted in both Bihar and Tamil Nadu showed a significantly higher number of additions compared to removals of voters and called upon the electoral body to undertake a re-verification of all Form-6 and Form-7 applications before finalizing the voter list for West Bengal.