Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal Manoj Agarwal started one step further preparation for electoral revision as he sent letter to all District Electoral Officers (DEO) for preparedness and also sent letter to Chief Secretary of state government to fill up all posts of ERO and AEROs immediately so that, ECI can start the electoral revision whenever it will be announced.
Wrote letter DEOs
On August 29, CEO will hold All Party meeting. CEO office sources said, before that, ECI practically is trying to complete all preparation of electoral revision. A senior official of ECI said, “We don’t know whether it would be called as SIR (Special Intensive Revision) or not, but like other years the revision will be held. So, we are preparing for all situations. We are trying to complete our preparations within August. So that, if necessary we can start the electoral revision from September first week.”
CEO in his letter to all District Magistrate who are District Election Officers as well, mentioned, “Therefore, it is hereby directed that, AEROs/EROs shall not delegate the discharge of any of their statutory duties and functions to any other official or person and will not share their ERONet login ID and OTP with any data entry operator or any other official or person under any circumstance whatsoever.”
It was directed because already ECI got complaints about some ERO and AERO are responsible to include fake names in the voter list. Already, ECI identified four officers and asked state government to suspend and file FIR against them. After series of confrontation ultimately on August 21, state government suspended those officers but yet to file FIR against them.
On this regard CEO stated in the letter, “Assistance for IT related work will only be solicited from system managers, assistant system managers and data entry operators who are permanent government employees, drawing salary from the Home & HA Department HoA 68-102-Salary and in their absence/shortage from permanent government employees of the level of Group C and above.”
He also mentioned, “It is further instructed that field level enquiry by BLOs cannot and should not be dispensed with by EROs/AEROs in the discharge of their statutory duties and functions. DEOs are hereby directed to ensure strict compliance of these directives by the EROs/AEROs in letter and spirit and any deviation whatsoever will be viewed very seriously and may invite appropriate action as prescribed by the Representation of Peoples Act, 1950 and the applicable Conduct Rules.”
Chief Secretary held a meeting
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Chief Secretary Manoj Pant also held as meeting virtually with all district magistrates where he mentioned that immediately all vacant posts of ERO and AERO should be filled with proper designated officers. He said, in these post a senior officers should be deputed who can deliver election duties properly.
A senior official of state administration said, “Chief Secretary ordered to fill up all vacant posts of ERO and AERO should be filled up within Friday. Both in case of ERO and AERO, senior WBCS officers should be deputed. Till date, it seems that, West Bengal administration is co-operating ECI to hold electoral revision.”