Santiniketan: Amartya Sen's septuagenarian cousin appeared for him at an SIR hearing on Friday and submitted copies of the Nobel laureate's passport and his mother's death certificate, among other documents, and asked the poll panel officials whether the economist's Bharat Ratna certificate, too, needed to be produced.
Sen, who is in the USA, where he is a professor at Harvard University, is among the 95 lakh Bengal voters served with hearing notices for "logical discrepancies" in their enumeration forms for the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls.
The ERO Net Portal flagged that the age gap between Sen and his mother was less than 15 years, which put his form in the "logical discrepancies" category. Sen's family, however, says the actual gap is 19 years.
As per the draft SIR roll, Sen's age is 92. The voters' list prepared after the previous SIR in 2002, when Sen was 69, mentioned that his mother, Amita Sen, was 88 years old.
When Election Commission officials turned up at Pratichi, Sen's ancestral home in Santiniketan, for the hearing, his cousin and neighbour, Shantabhanu Sen, met them with an authorisation letter signed by the economist. The cousin did not speak to the media.
Gitikantha Majumdar, who is in charge of maintaining Pratichi and also takes care of Sen's official matters in Santiniketan, said, "We handed over all documents to the (election) commission after obtaining permission from Prof Sen. We handed over a letter sent by Prof Sen (authorising his cousin to represent him at the hearing). Photocopies of his passport, his mother's death certificate and his Aadhaar card, as well as the 2002 voters' list were submitted. They (EC officials) didn't ask for anything else. We wanted to provide the Bharat Ratna document, too, but they didn't take it,"
Residents of Santiniketan reacted sharply to the hearing. Anil Konar, secretary of Santiniketan Trust, said, "Amartya Sen is a Bharat Ratna. The India govt itself has recognised him as a Ratna. The way the notice was issued to him was inappropriate. He deserves some respect and a special status. If there was any discrepancy, senior EC officials should have looked into it without making it public."
Konar, too, had to attend a hearing because of a "logical discrepancy" in his form. "I have no grudge. My case was natural because I have changed my address," the octogenarian said.
"This is undesirable. India knows Amartya Sen, and so does the world. This could have been avoided," said Sabujkali Sen, a Santiniketan resident and former teacher at Visva-Bharati.
CM Mamata Banerjee, too, spoke out against the hearing. "If this goes on, not even 1% of voters will remain (in Bengal). I stand with the people and will fight for their rights to save democracy. Amartya Sen is being unnecessarily summoned," she said.
Bengal CEO Manoj Agarwal and others in his office did not comment on the issue.
According to the family, Sen became a voter in 2014 and cast his vote at Visva-Bharati Staff Club. In the 2026 draft SIR list, Sen's name was mentioned as Prabasi Bharatiya (non-resident Indian) in Part-274, bearing serial number 169.