Amidst the digitization of enumeration forms ahead of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in West Bengal, which is almost at the ending corners, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has ordered the electoral officers in the state to focus on minute ‘progeny’ mapping, as serious flaws have been detected regarding the parents’ identities in the current voters’ list in the state as of October 27.
“Progeny” mapping is carried out to verify whether the names of a voter’s parents on the current electoral roll match those recorded in the 2002 list—the last time the SIR was conducted in West Bengal.
It has been reported by the sources in the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, that the ECI is emphasizing minute “progeny” ahead of the instances where the names of the parents of some voters in the current list are different from those names in the 2002 list.
These instances came to light during the ongoing digitization of enumeration forms, which involves two components: “self” mapping and “progeny” mapping.
Meanwhile, an official from the CEO’s office said that the ECI had also decided to conduct a random survey of the duly filled enumeration forms collected by booth-level officers (BLOs) in every booth across the state.
As part of this survey, a selected number of forms from each booth or part will be chosen at random to determine whether there are any major discrepancies in the data for that area. The survey will be conducted under the supervision of specially appointed observers responsible for reviewing the state’s ongoing revision exercise.
The ECI has also highlighted that more than the BLOs, the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) would be accountable for the effective and smooth conduct of the mapping exercise.
As of October 27, the total number of voters stands at 76,637,529. The SIR exercise commenced on November 4.
–IANS
