Kolkata: The electoral roll published on Saturday came as a shocker for several citizens whose voting rights were put under question by the EC, 24 years after their names had appeared on the last 2002 SIR list. Many others claimed to have submitted valid documents at the hearings but still found their names either deleted or put under adjudication. The anger over SIR deletion and adjudication decisions brewed across seats, where “victims” claimed harassment and humiliation caused by the EC exercise, apparently aimed at weeding out names of ineligible voters, including the dead and the duplicates.New Alipore resident Samir Mondal had cancelled his doctor’s appointment to attend SIR hearing to sort out logical discrepancy. As he checked the electoral roll on Sunday morning, he discovered his name was deleted. “Calling up the BLO I learnt the EC had struck me off the roll, even though I had submitted the documents during the hearing. What am I supposed to do now?” said Mondal. Another name to be deleted is that of Raj Kumar Paswan, a septuagenarian living on Durgapur Lane. He can barely walk but had still attended the hearing. “I gave all the documents, whatever they asked for. Why is my name omitted? Voters like me seem to have deleted, not based on their documents but on their voting preferences. Why should a genuine voter be humiliated?” Paswan said.Those marked ‘under adjudication’ are equally angry as they all claimed they had submitted all the documents required. Dipak Sharma, a resident of Ward 81 under Rashbehari constituency, said, “I have been casting votes since 1987 and never imagined that my right would ever be under adjudication.” An EC official said certain names had been put ‘under adjudication’ as “EROs/AEROs could not take a decision after hearing. Those names have been sent for adjudication by judicial officers, according to the Supreme Court order”.Shruti Basu, a resident of a housing complex in Narendrapur in Sonarpur South constituency, found her name deleted though it was there on the 2002 SIR list. “My name is deleted though I did not receive any summons for hearing. The BLO did not contact me. Some neighbours advised me to apply through Form 6,” she said. After Abhishek Basak, a voter from Maniktala constituency, was marked ‘deceased’ on the draft list, the BLO told him to submit his documents. “The BLO had said I had nothing to worry about but now I see my name is deleted.” In the same constituency, 274 voters have been marked ‘deleted’, according to Shantiranjan Kundu, Ward 32 councillor. Miraj Ahmed from part 52 of Ward 132 in Behala, Aparna Bhattacharya from part 110 and Shyamlakshna Das from part 111 also found themselves ‘deleted’. Aparna asked, “Am I a Bangladeshi or an infiltrator? Why did they delete me?”(With inputs from Dwaipayan Ghosh)
