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Chandigarh: Punjab’s chief electoral officer here on Friday, May 15, held a meeting with the representatives of political parties regarding the SIR of electoral rolls in the state to allay any of their concerns.

The party representatives were briefed in detail regarding the entire Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise during the all-party meeting, official sources said.

Punjab assembly polls are due early next year.

After the meeting, the representatives of political parties said they expressed their apprehensions regarding large-scale additions or deletions of voters, citing recent examples of West Bengal and Bihar, where assembly polls were held.

During the meeting, a delegation of senior Congress leaders led by MP Dr Amar Singh and comprising PCC general secretary-organisation Sandeep Sandhu and Gagandeep Singh, flagged various issues.

Later, briefing reporters, Amar Singh and Sandhu said they raised the issue of “duplicate votes from other states who are registered in Punjab”.

They said, “Particularly, the voters from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where the SIR process has already been completed, need to be screened in the Punjab electoral rolls.”

The party leaders urged the CEO to raise the matter with the Election Commission of India (ECI), “since the duplicate voters from other states can be cross-checked by the ECI only”.

The Congress, AAP and SAD leaders also raised the issue of 17 per cent of voters not having been mapped in the state yet.

They said the number comes to around 34-35 lakh voters, and they can lose their right to vote if immediate measures are not taken.

The Congress party also demanded an adequate “response time period” from the commission for the remedial measures in case anybody’s vote is deleted.

The Congress, AAP and SAD asked the commission to provide the lists of the deleted and newly added voters to the political parties for better transparency.

They also said that the ECI should ensure that the booth level officers closely coordinate with the booth level agents for better functioning.

The representatives of these three parties also emphasised the need to have the enumeration forms in Punjabi language also so that voters understand what details are being asked of them.

AAP leader Ferry Sofat said, referring to examples of West Bengal and Bihar, the representatives talked about how votes were deleted in bulk.

“We also questioned the need of SIR when revision of electoral rolls takes place every year,” he said.

SAD leaders Arshdeep Singh Kler and Daljit Singh Cheema represented their party in the meeting.

“We told the CEO that political parties have apprehensions regarding SIR considering what happened in Bihar and Bengal,” Kler said.

Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Anindita Mitra here on Thursday said the ECI has issued a notification directing the conduct of the SIR in the state.

Mitra said that under the exercise, booth level officers will undertake door-to-door visits across Punjab from June 25 to July 24 for filling voter verification forms.

“For this extensive exercise, the entire election machinery has been mobilised, including 24,453 BLOs, 2,476 supervisors, 117 electoral registration officers (EROs) and 234 assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs)”, Mitra said.