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Sixty seven per cent of the population in India has voting rights, and therefore voters' identity cards, while that figure for Left-ruled Bengal is 58 per cent, the Election Commission has revealed. Chief Electoral Officer Debasis Sen looked rather grim when he announced the figures on Tuesday, saying the number was really low. He said, "In fact, the EC cannot interpret this data. I have asked local authorities to check if the computation has gone wrong anywhere."
EC sources said their men are out to determine the booths where there can be discrepancies. They are armed with seven computer softwares that can ferret out these errant booths, sources said.
An official of the EC's West Bengal chapter said nearly 48 lakh eligible people in Bengal are now without voting rights. He said, "There are 5.04 crore voters here. That figure will rise to 5.52 crore if the electoral rolls are revised properly."
These figures might have given credence to a long-standing complaint by the Opposition, wherein they have said that CPM cadres have forcibly not included the names of other party supporters in the rolls. Leader of the Opposition Partha Chatterjee said: "We have said this before. If the electoral rolls had presented a true picture of the state's voters, then election results would have been different." Another reason why voter strength is low could also be because it is not easy anymore for Bangladeshi infiltrators in Bengal to enroll themselves. Recent guidelines have set down that owning a ration card is no longer enough to be a voter here.
Debasis Sen, however, would not be drawn into interpreting the figures. "I have presented the data. I can only revise it," he said. On Tuesday, Sen held a meeting at the Writers' Buildings with nodal officers and officers-in-charge of all districts. He has asked officers to take necessary action wherever necessary and refresh the electoral roll before June 30.
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