A day after the Election Commission released the draft electoral roll of West Bengal on the conclusion of the first phase of the SIR, senior CPI(M) leader Mohammad Salim’s son, Atish Aziz, on Wednesday pointed to the error in the list and claimed that his surname has been changed to ‘Avasti’.

While there is no error in Salim’s own voter details, his surname is ‘Avasti’ in the list of his relatives.

Atish Aziz, a voter in the Kolkata Port Assembly constituency, said the change in surname raises questions about the Election Commission’s exercise of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in West Bengal.

“I live in Kolkata. My father was a parliament member for so many years, and now this ‘mistake’ has appeared. It is easy to understand what is happening to people who are not so-called privileged people like me. It is part of a larger infrastructural and unplanned process,” Aziz said.

“The Election Commission has made me and my father a Brahmin,” he added.

Meanwhile, Salim hit out at the Election Commission. In an interview with an English daily, he said, “The Commission has taken such a serious revision process very lightly. Lack of proper training and technical preparation is causing such mistakes. SIR has practically been turned into a farce.”

Atish Aziz said the matter has been reported to the booth-level agents of the CPI(M) to rectify the mistake. According to party sources, the name correction process will be initiated by filling the necessary forms through the concerned Booth Level Officer (BLO).

However, a senior EC official said, “We have checked. There is no mistake in the original draft electoral roll. This mistake happened when it was translated into Bengali because Kolkata’s original electoral roll is in English. Even after that, if such a mistake occurred, the concerned elector can correct his or her name by filling up Form 8 and submitting it to the BLO or via online.”