Kolkata, Nov. 3 -- Ahead of the KMC polls, the Special Summary Revision (SSR) of electoral rolls has assumed importance, with the draft roll due on November 23 while Opposition parties have demanded that voters excluded during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) be allowed to vote.

Trinamool Congress, Congress and Left Front leaders on Tuesday jointly objected to the Election Commission's revised Form 7 rules, alleging that they could facilitate deletion of genuine voters.

At a meeting chaired by Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Neelam Meena, Opposition leaders questioned a provision allowing an individual to submit up to 10 objection forms in an Assembly constituency. They warned that the provision could be misused to target legitimate voters, as Form 7 is used to seek deletion of names from electoral rolls.

MAITC leader Kunal Ghosh alleged that the SSR was being initiated without resolving cases of eligible voters whose names remained pending after the SIR. He demanded that those placed in the 'logical discrepancy' category be allowed to apply through Form 6. He also alleged that no minutes were maintained at the meeting and the CEO failed to address the opposition's concerns.

The Congress delegation, led by Ashutosh Chattopadhyay, claimed bogus objections had put 1.2 lakh voters in Kolkata and 39,000 in Howrah at risk of losing their voting rights. It also flagged the shortage of judges in SIR tribunals. Left Front representative Palash Das termed the SSR a "mass deletion exercise", claiming objections had been raised against 16 lakh voters included after verification, while nearly 27 lakh cases remained pending before tribunals. The Left demanded that these voters be allowed to apply through Form 6.

BJP representative Sisir Bajoria rejected the allegations, citing anomalies in existing rolls, including instances of hundreds of voters being listed as the children of a single individual. He defended Form 7 as necessary to weed out discrepancies.

Meanwhile, KMC Commissioner and Kolkata North DEO Smita Pandey said at a separate all-party meeting that objections could be filed from November 28 to December 20. The final roll will be published on January 16, 2027.

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