Kolkata, March 25 -- The Election Commission (EC) is investigating a technical glitch that surfaced in its portal on Tuesday night, where, for a brief period, all voters in West Bengal were placed in the "under adjudication" category.

Voters checking their details using EPIC numbers found their status incorrectly displayed, even in cases where their names were already included in the final electoral rolls published on February 28.

The glitch, appearing in less than 24 hours after the poll body released its first supplementary voter list around midnight on Monday, created more confusion.

"The glitch was temporary and was caused by a technical error, possibly related to the server or backend integration. It has been rectified in less than two hours . We are probing the cause behind it," an EC official said. The glitch led to widespread panic, with several voters reporting that their previously confirmed entries were suddenly tagged as "under adjudication".

The name of TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee was also marked as "under adjudication", while the leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari's status was shown as "deleted".

"Yesterday(Tuesday), an alarming situation came to light. The Voter's Services Portal of the Election Commission showed the entire electorate of Bengal as 'Under Adjudication'. This triggered widespread panic, anxiety, and distress among the people," TMC MP Mahua Moitra wrote in her X handle.

She further questioned how a software maintained with taxpayers' money can be so error-prone and unreliable? "What concrete steps has the Election Commission taken to fix these recurring issues? Instead of addressing matters of such grave importance that affect millions of voters, the Vanish Commission ( referring to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar led Election Commission as Vanish Commission) is busy enabling BJP," she added.

The ruling TMC alleged that the error cast doubt on the integrity of the electoral system.

"Whether this is a "technical glitch" or deliberate panic-mongering by the Vanish Commission, this is extremely alarming and the consequences can be deadly. We have already seen 200 precious lives lost due to fear, anxiety and mental trauma caused by SIR. If even one more innocent life is lost because of this criminal negligence and fear, the blood will be directly on the hands of @ECISVEEP and Mr. Vanish Kumar. Will the Election Commission take responsibility for these avoidable tragedies?" the All India Trinamool Congress posted in its X handle.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.