Preparation over SIR in Bengal to start by first week of August: Sources

Kolkata, July 19 (IANS) With the detailed preparations already completed, the work for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voters' list in West Bengal by the Election Commission of India (ECI) is expected to start anytime from now, officials said on Saturday.

Sources from the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said that in all probability, the work for SIR might start earliest in the last week of July or latest by the first week of August.

The last time the SIR of the voters' list in West Bengal was done was in January 2002, during the previous Left Front regime, and so this fresh SIR will be conducted after a gap of 23 years.

The SIR is significant for West Bengal since the state will be going for crucial Assembly polls next year, which in all probability will be in May 2026.

A door-to-door survey of the voter's list will be carried out as part of the SIR process.

The commission also retains the right to file an FIR against any individual accused of getting a fake voters' card.

The Trinamool Congress had already objected to this SIR since it was started in Bihar, which is going for polls later this year.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that the SIR was started in Bihar but is targeting West Bengal.

She also claimed that the real intention behind starting the SIR was to impose the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in West Bengal.

However, the state unit of the BJP had wholeheartedly welcomed the SIR.

The West Bengal Leader of the Opposition (LoP) and BJP leader, Suvendu Adhikari, earlier this week, stressed the need for a door-to-door review to identify the illegal Rohingya infiltrators who have managed to get their names enrolled in the voters' list of the state with the help of the state administration and the ruling Trinamool Congress.

"In the special intensive review conducted by the Election Commission of India in Bihar, which is going for polls this year, a few lakhs of illegal Rohingya infiltrators have been identified. Similarly, several illegal Rohingya infiltrators have entered West Bengal after illegally crossing the state's borders with Nepal and Bangladesh. There is a need for an urgent door-to-door review to identify these Rohingya voters," Adhikari said.

However, Chief Minister Banerjee refuted the allegations of LoP Adhikari and said that a fake propaganda of illegal Rohingya infiltration ion the state is being carried out to strike out the names of genuine voters in the state from the voters' list.

"Rohingyas are from Myanmar. How can they be in West Bengal? Still, false propaganda is being carried out by certain vested interests that there are lakhs of illegal Rohingya infiltrators in West Bengal. They are doing this to strike out the names of genuine voters in the state from the voters' list. I challenge them to provide us with the addresses where these Rohingya infiltrators are hiding," the Chief Minister said.

--IANS

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