Kolkata: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is underway in 9 states and 3 Union territories, where draft rolls have already been published. The Election Commission of India (ECI) is currently conducting hearings on claims and objections related to the draft voters’ list.
Interestingly, ECI has been compelled to engage Odia interpreters-cum-translators in four gram panchayats of West Bengal — two each under the Dantan and Mohanpur community development blocks — in West Midnapore district, IANS reported.
The reason is that the four gram panchayats are located close to the Bengal-Odisha border, and the majority of voters are predominantly Odia-speaking people.
“Even the duly-filled enumeration forms filled by voters are in Odia scripts, thus necessitating the appointment of Odia interpreters-cum-translators for hearing sessions,” informed an official from the CEO’s office.
These voters have their ancestral roots in Odisha, but are settled in the gram panchayats located in West Bengal for generations. They depend
mainly on agriculture and animal husbandry for their livelihood.
“Often, the new brides coming to these families have their roots in Odisha, and they are conversant with no other language but Odia. In such a situation, it had become extremely difficult for the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO), Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AERO), and Booth-level Officers (BLO) to communicate with these voters, who are mainly Bengali-speaking, to interact with these Odia-speaking voters, and hence the necessity for Odia interpreters-cum-translators during the hearing sessions,” the official said.
“While verbal interaction with these voters during the hearing session is a matter of inconvenience for the EROs, AEROs, and micro-observers, what is even more difficult and time-consuming is translating the Odia scripts in their enumeration forms. So, the average time consumed for hearings for such voters is much more than that for other voters,” he further explained.
The draft voters’ list was published on December 16. Once the hearings on claims and objections related to draft voters’ list are completed, the final voters’ list will be released on February 14.
After ECI conducted SIR in Bihar between Jine and September last year, phase 2 of the exercise began in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal on November 4.