Kolkata: Several electors in Rajarhat-Gopalpur, Basirhat South and Barasat Assembly constituencies are in a helpless situation as their names do not appear in the online SIR roll of 2002, but are mentioned in the hard copy of that list collected from the DM office.
The norms of the
stipulate that the ongoing SIR exercise in the state only considers the online SIR roll of 2002. This means the electors whose names are not on that list will have to link their parents' or grandparents' names that appeared there. In the absence of that, they will have to appear before the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) in the hearing in the coming days and show one of the 13 documents specified by the commission.
The online SIR roll of 2002 shows 559 names in the electoral list of Part 135 at Narayanpur Free Primary School polling station under the then Rajarhat Assembly constituency (now Rajarhat-Gopalpur). However, in the hard copy of the SIR list, there are 34 more names as ‘additions', whose names do not appear on the list on the website. As a result, the old voters of this booth, like Prashant Ghosh, Manorama Biswas, Sudhangshu Pal, and several others are in a helpless situation.
North and South Biramnagar villages under Basirhat Sangrampur Shirhati Gram Panchayat in North 24 Parganas have a similar situation where the names of 34 electors have vanished from the online list. Part 198 of the then Basirhat Assembly constituency (now South Basirhat Assembly constituency) consists of 858 names on the online list. However, the list distributed from the DM's office has 892 names.
The ECI has already recognised the 2003 voter lists as the reference point for the ongoing SIR exercise for 187 booths under the Kulpi Assembly segment, as those booths were found missing from the 2002 SIR list.
However, Trinamool Congress national general secretary MP Abhishek Banerjee has questioned the commission's consistency and neutrality. Not only Trinamool, Pradesh Congress president Subhankar Sarkar has brought the matter to the attention of the Chief Electoral Officer, Bengal. He has also demanded that the missing part of the 2002 voter list be uploaded on the website.
Acknowledging the problem, the ECI has taken steps to upload the missing names of the 2002 SIR lists on its website. "The electors whose names feature in the hard copy of the list but are not included on the online list can fill and submit the enumeration forms referring to the hard copy records," an ECI official said.