Kolkata, February 15: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has set a deadline for the West Bengal government to file FIRs against election officials implicated in including fake voters in the electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process.
An insider from the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office in West Bengal revealed that the Commission sent a communication to the state secretariat on Saturday evening, specifying that FIRs must be filed by February 17 (Tuesday) against these officials.
The insider stated, “Despite repeated reminders to file FIRs against these four errant electoral officials, the state government has shown negligence in taking action. Therefore, the Commission decided to establish a deadline for filing the FIRs.”
The four officials facing FIR directives include Debottam Dutta Chowdhury, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) for the Baruipur East Assembly constituency in South 24 Parganas, and Tathagat Mandal, the Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) for the same area.
The other two officials are Biplab Sarkar, the ERO for the Moyna Assembly constituency in East Midnapore, and Sudipta Das, the AERO for that region.
It is noteworthy that last August, the ECI headquarters in New Delhi had instructed the West Bengal government to suspend these four election officials and file FIRs against them.
