Too many siblings? EC wants answers as 11 Kolkata family members flagged on voter rolls
Telegraph | 2 April 2026
They are 12 brothers and sisters, and all but one have their names under adjudication in the electoral rolls.
The reason: the Election Commission has raised “suspicion” over how so many siblings share the same father.
Hearing notices issued by the EC to the 11 siblings state: “You have been linked as son/daughter with someone who is also claimed by six others as father, giving suspicion of a likely incorrect match.”
After the post-SIR electoral rolls were published on February 28, 11 of them were marked “under adjudication”.
The family in Topsia, under the Kasba Assembly constituency, said they had submitted all relevant documents, including those proving the relationship with their father, but still faced scrutiny — all except one brother, who features on the voter rolls. The siblings are nine brothers and three sisters.
“We are confused about why it should be the EC’s concern how many children a person has. As far as we, the common voters, understand, the EC will check whether the documents submitted are authentic,” said Farhan Ahmed, 43, one of the siblings and an exporter of industrial leather gloves.
“I have been voting since 2011,” he said.
The names of the wives, husbands and children of the siblings have been cleared.
“One of the concerns is whether we would be able to vote this time. But a bigger worry is whether, if our names are finally deleted from the electoral rolls, we will be able to run our businesses,” said Irfan Ahmed, 45, who exports luxury bags to Europe.
“If the government says voter cards have to be linked to bank accounts and financial transactions, what will we do?”
Irfan’s 21-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter are on the rolls.
Farhan said they had submitted “all the documents” during the SIR hearing at a local school.
“The BLO had said there would be no problem, as all the documents were in place,” he said. “When we found our names were under adjudication, I called the BLO, who said we would have to submit all the documents again and judges would scrutinise them.”
Irfan, the eldest, said that during the second submission, they provided Aadhaar, PAN and voter cards, along with their father’s death certificate, passport and voter ID.
Their father, Amir Ahmed, who was in the leather export business, died in 2009.
“We have been checking the supplementary lists, but our names are missing so far. There is no one to tell us whether the list for our area has been published, or when it will be,” said Irfan.
Their younger brother, Shabbir Ahmed, 28, who is also in the leather export business, said all of them had also submitted their school certificates.
Their sister, Naureen Bano, 32, a homemaker, has her voter card linked with her husband’s name, Ahtasan Ahmed. His name appears on the list, but hers does not.
“There was a mismatch in her date of birth, which I had rectified by submitting Form 8, as per EC requirements. Despite that, her name is under adjudication,” said Ahtasan, who works for an airline.
In January, EC officials had served an SIR hearing notice on Amartya Sen over a “logical discrepancy” in his enumeration form. According to the poll panel, the notice was issued because the age difference between Amartya and his mother, Amita Sen, as calculated by the EC, was less than 15 years.