At DM office, deleted voters face appeal maze amid conflicting instructions
Telegraph | 2 April 2026
Many voters removed from the revised electoral rolls in poll-bound Bengal turned up at the office of the South 24-Parganas district magistrate in Alipore on Wednesday.
They came to file written applications to reclaim their voting rights, but hours of running from pillar to post got them nowhere.
Different officials on different floors of the office blocks in the Alipore compound gave them conflicting instructions. “You have to fill Form 6”; “all applications must be online”; “the final date of filling applications is over” — and more.
Sources in the poll panel said deleted voters in Kasba, Behala East, Behala West, Jadavpur and Tollygunge can submit written appeals at the office of the DM, who also serves as the district election officer (DEO).
An official in the South 24-Parganas district election department at the Treasury Building in Alipore told this newspaper: "We haven't received any formal communication about receiving written applications." He refused to provide further information since he was not an authorised spokesperson.
Later in the day, an official in the office of Bengal's chief electoral officer (CEO) said that was not the case. "Specific instructions have been passed to all DEOs asking them to accept written applications. It is wrong if people are being told that no written appeal will be accepted. We have made it clear that aggrieved voters will have the option to appeal online or offline," the official said.
"Voters can submit written appeals to the DEO or to the concerned subdivisional officer (SDO)," he added.
Sk Mirajuddin, who works with an oil marketing PSU, came to the Alipore office from Budge Budge. He has been a regular voter from the Budge Budge Assembly seat.
He found his name deleted in the third post-SIR supplementary list. The alleged discrepancy that led to the deletion was a mismatch in the prefix to his father's name. "It is not my fault. The mistake was committed when the names were translated from Bengali to English," said Mirajuddin.
On Wednesday, he brought his passport, PAN, Aadhaar cards and other documents he had submitted at the SIR hearing.
"I first went to the main DM office. A policeman directed me to the zilla parishad office, from there I was sent to the district election department in the Treasury Building," he said.
A man at the 'May I Help You' desk told him that his application could not be received because there was no formal communication yet. He was asked to come later.
Farhat Sultana, a homemaker from the same constituency in South 24-Parganas, came with her husband. Her name was deleted from the revised rolls. "I came to Budge Budge from Allahabad after marriage. I have voted in previous elections. I don't know why my name was deleted," she said.
A man at the gates told Sultana to file a Form 6 application, meant for the inclusion of new voters.
An official at the Bengal CEO’s office said just the opposite: "Deleted voters should approach the tribunals, not submit Form 6."
Both voters spent over two hours trying to get clarity before leaving.
Khokan Bijali, from the Behala East constituency, was shown a notice in Bengali that said the last date for filing SIR appeals was March 15.
The EC on February 28 published a preliminary "final" post-SIR list. Some 60 lakh were marked “under adjudication” and over 5 lakh were “deleted”.
An appeal against the deletion had to be filed within 15 days. The notice that Bijali was wrongly directed to was meant for applications after February 28.