Living Voters Declared Dead: Major Errors Found in Bengal's Draft Electoral Roll

Ashwini and Shibani Adhikari display their voter IDs alongside the SIR draft roll where they were erroneously declared deceased.

Kolkata:

A shocking discovery has emerged from Bengal where Ashwini Adhikari and his wife Shibani Adhikari, both daily wage laborers, found themselves listed as 'dead' in the first draft of the state's revised electoral roll. This draft was published on Tuesday following the Election Commission's mandated statewide Special Intensive Revision.

Contrary to the official records, both individuals are very much alive. The couple made an appearance at a press conference organized by the Trinamool Congress, Bengal's ruling party. Trinamool has joined other opposition parties in alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which holds power at the central government, is collaborating with the Election Commission to manipulate election outcomes.

Abhijit Bhowmick, the Trinamool district chief, raised critical concerns about this discrepancy, noting that the couple had properly completed the required enumeration forms as mandated by the government.

"How can they be shown as 'dead' in the draft voter list even after submitting the enumeration forms?" he questioned, suggesting the Election Commission was operating with ulterior motives. Bhowmick further claimed that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) were not provided sufficient time to conduct their duties properly.

This time constraint, according to Bhowmick, resulted in serious errors such as this one.

The anomalies extended beyond the Adhikari couple. Dankuni Councillor Surya De, a Trinamool leader, was also incorrectly included in the list of 'dead voters' despite being alive.

In response, the Election Commission has issued a show-cause notice to the responsible booth level officer. The Commission has also acknowledged similar incidents in Cooch Behar and Siliguri, and is preparing notices for BLOs in those regions as well.

In another remarkable error, CPM state general secretary and former MP Mohammed Salim and his son Atish Aziz were incorrectly assigned the Brahmin surname "Awasthi."

Aziz addressed this mistake in a Facebook post, stating the Election Commission of India has "made me a Brahmin, and Mohammed Salim too," accompanied by a photograph of his voter information. The surname 'Awasthi' was written in Bengali in the last name section, both for Aziz and his father Mohammed Salim who was listed as his relative.

"My father has been a politician for decades. If such an error can happen in his case, one can only imagine what might have happened to others," Aziz told news agency PTI.

The Election Commission released the draft voter roll yesterday after completing the Special Intensive Revision exercise in the poll-bound state. The revision resulted in the deletion of 58 lakh names, categorizing 24 lakh voters as "dead," 19 lakh as "permanently shifted," and 12 lakh as "missing."