Kolkata: Confusion struck more than 100 voters, who came to Mitra Institution booth number 260 for the SIR hearing on Sunday. They scrambled to find their way to the room where the hearing was being held by electoral registration officers (EROs), while checking the documents they packed in their bags.
Muni Devi, 47, was the first person to arrive in front of the heritage institution, Chief minister Mamata Banerjee's polling booth, for the SIR hearing, along with her husband, Sudhir Ram. Originally from Bihar, Muni married Sudhir and moved to Kolkata's Bhowanipore area in 2005. Both her parents passed away when she was a child, and her name did not appear in the 2002 SIR list as well.
Sudhir said that they were told by their BLO during the enumeration form fill-up that Muni was likely to be called for a hearing. "When someone tells you the word ‘hearing', the first thought that crosses your mind is court. This is our first time, and we are scared because we don't know what to expect. We have got all possible documents. Be it Aadhaar, PAN, voter ID, birth certificate, marriage certificate, I have them in my bag," 47-year-old Muni said.
Around 11.50 pm, when a BLO arrived to open the front gate, the voters were informed that they had to go to the school's rear side where the hearing was taking place on the ground floor. People soon ran towards the direction and upon arrival were handed chits with numbers. A Kolkata Police officer stood at the entrance ensuring that only people called for the hearing entered the premises.
It was a mixed crowd of Bengalis and non-Bengalis, reflecting the diversely populated constituency. Gopi Routh, 39, a railway employee, has five people in his family, all their names appeared, and he was called for a hearing. Sitting alone at the centre, Routh kept fidgeting with his papers, but when asked for the cause of his hearing, Routh said, "I don't know. I have come with all documents."
Like at many hearing camps, there was a separate booth for BLOs who were checking ‘logical discrepancies'. According to an official, these discrepancies were divided into three segments — mismatch in father's or mother's name, age discrepancies and mismatch of age between father and grandfather. The official said they found cases where the age difference between father and grandfather was four or five years. "When such discrepancies were found, people were called in. Cases with minor errors came to us while the majority was called in for hearing," he said.