TMC team urges CEO to reduce harassment of elderly, ailing
Times of India | 30 December 2025
Kolkata: A 5-member Trinamool delegation on Monday met Bengal chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal and urged him to see that voters do not face harassment for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The delegation told the CEO that elderly and infirm voters should not be called for SIR hearings, and people who are being getting hearing notices should be told the reasons for it.
Addressing reporters after the meeting, TMC MP Partha Bhowmik said, "Why are people whose names are being deleted from the voter list not being informed about the reasons for the deletion? Our second major demand was that senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and those living at various shelter homes where the EC itself sends officials to collect votes, should not be summoned for hearings and made to suffer."
Bhowmik added, "While BLA-2s were allowed during door-to-door visits for name verification, and all parties are allowed polling agents, why are BLA-2s not being permitted during the hearing? Those who went outside the state for studies, or migrated to other states or countries for work, must be given the option of virtual hearings. If we do not receive a satisfactory reply, we will return tomorrow at 3pm."
Following the meeting, the EC said voters who are "85 years or more, who are sick, PWD... may not be called for hearing."
TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee posted on X: "We are glad that steps were taken (by the EC) subsequently to provide relief." He urged the EC "to consider the cases of senior citizens on compassionate grounds, particularly those above 60 years of age who are living with medical conditions or comorbidities."
Junior Union minister Sukanta Majumdar, however, said that if elderly voters can come to booths to vote, they can come for the hearing as well. "How will they come to vote? Won't that be troublesome too? I fail to understand... if a person can go to cast his vote, why can't he or she come for the hearing," Majumdar said. Citing the example of his ailing father, Majumdar said that there were people unwilling to vote. However, Majumdar said that there should be a provision for elderly or ailing persons to attend hearings online. Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said that SIR was on in 11 other states and the allegations against the process in Bengal were unique.
Meanwhile, SUCI state secretary Chandidas Bhattacharya said in a statement: "The harassment of ordinary people under the guise of hearings has reached a stage of cruel oppression. Elderly individuals in their nineties are forced to come to hearing centres by ambulance in severe cold, and paralysed individuals have to climb stairs to the 2nd floor with the help of their children. Their hearings were supposed to be conducted at home."