After voters, ‘logical discrepancy’ foxes Election Commission officers
Times of India | 19 January 2026
Kolkata: The absence of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to deal with 94.5 lakh ‘logical discrepancies' left not just voters harassed, but also left several officers and observers appointed by the Election Commission, who are now conducting SIR hearings, frustrated.
Officers who spoke to TOI, requesting anonymity, said voters are being dragged to physical SIR hearings for even minor mistakes. "During the Bihar SIR, BLOs were allowed to accept documents during the enumeration process, reducing the number of people called for hearings. But in Bengal, the EC did not allow BLOs to accept documents. This is harassing voters, and their anger is getting directed at us," an officer said.
An officer also questioned the rationale of rejecting a Madhyamik admit card as proof of birth. "EC is not accepting the admit card of the Madhyamik examination, but they are accepting the pass certificates of Madhyamik. Logically, it should have been accepted. The Bengal CEO also pressed for it, but his plea was rejected. So it shows that the EC is not even giving an ear to the appeal of its top officer in Bengal. The Madhyamik admit card has the details of the candidate, including his date of birth and father's name, so rejecting it is actually illogical," the officer reasoned.
The officers felt that minor AI-generated discrepancies — most of which are not the voter's fault — are leading to harassment of voters, which could have been avoided. "A former EC official who worked in Bengal filled his surname as Roychoudhury. In his documents, Roy and Choudhury are different words. He too was served with a hearing notice," an observer said.
The observer also said that he came across a complaint by Draupadi Giri, a voter of Behala West. She was slapped with a SIR hearing notice and asked to clarify why, in her EPIC, her father's name was Nanda Nayek, while in the SIR 2002 it was Nandalal Nayek. "There is no point dragging her to a hearing," the officer said.
The Election Commission officers pointed out that minor mismatches in names, ages, addresses, or family details are grounds for a hearing, which is creating chaos. An officer also pointed out that many voters who have their names in the SIR 2002 list are in trouble if the BLO was not able to match the name in the 2002 SIR, as several assembly constituencies changed due to the delimitation of 2006. Many from outside Bengal too were served notice, as the BLOs lack data from outside Bengal where SIR took place in 2003. This disparity sparked serious questions about the EC's internal coordination.
Swapan Mondal, secretary of BLO Aikya Manch, said that they submitted a memorandum to the Bengal CEO, Manoj Agarwal, for giving a waiver to voters with minor discrepancies which can be easily corrected by the BLOs, but instead, a hearing notice is issued.
"Even after submitting documents, the voters are summoned, which is also illogical," he said. He added that the BLOs in the BLO App can see the logical discrepancies, so they can rectify them, but they are not empowered to do so.