West Bengal Opposition leaders ask election body to delay municipal polls

Voter List Concerns

Opposition leaders and activists in West Bengal met State Election Commissioner Krishna Gupta on Wednesday to demand a delay in upcoming civic body elections. They want the polls postponed until the ongoing Special Summary Revision exercise is fully complete. The Election Commission of India announced this SSR exercise on October 15 across 17 States and Union Territories following protests against the special intensive revision and Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The draft roll for the SSR is set to be published on November 12, while the final roll will release on January 4.

Pending Appeals

The delegation warned that holding municipal elections in areas like Kolkata and Howrah right now would create major problems. They pointed out that large-scale voter deletions occurred during the earlier revision. Currently, about 1.2 lakh appeals for voter inclusion are pending before the Tribunal in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area, alongside roughly 39,000 appeals within the Howrah Municipal Corporation jurisdiction. According to their memorandum, 100 percent of disposed appeals in Kolkata and 99 percent in Howrah have been decided in favor of including voters. Leaving out these roughly 1.6 lakh appellants would block them from voting for a second time following the Assembly polls.

Demands And Signatories

The leaders asked the election commissioner to use statutory powers to add all Tribunal appellants to the electoral rolls for the upcoming municipal elections. The memorandum bears signatures from several notable figures, including Congress State president Subhankar Sarkar, MP Saugata Roy, former Rajya Sabha MP Jawahar Sircar, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation leader Palash Ghosh, advocate and activist Avik Saha, economist Prasenjit Bose, and human rights activist Sujato Bhadra.

Context

Electoral rolls serve as the official list of citizens who are legally allowed to cast their votes in any government election. Special revision processes are periodically carried out by election authorities to update these lists by adding new voters and fixing errors like missing names. Local municipal elections decide the local government bodies that manage civic amenities and city administration.