63 lakh voters left out of Bengal polls after SIR revision

KOLKATA: Around 63 lakh voters across the state have been "disappointed" as they will have to shy away from polling stations for the first time in poll season ever since they began exercising their franchise.

Many of these "dead" and "deleted" electors cast votes from the time of paper ballots, but they will not be allowed to press the button of choice on electronic voting machines (EVMs) this time, thanks to the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, which stripped them of their voting rights. Staying indoors on poll days, they will watch their neighbours and kin heading towards booths in their areas.





"The dates are announced but they are immaterial as the Election Commission's SIR exercise did not find me a legitimate voter even though I have been casting votes in the city since the 1980s. My family members will go to the booth, save for me this time. I have no words to console myself," said Tripti Dubey, a deleted voter from Bhowanipore assembly constituency.

Rita Chakraborty, a "dead" voter in Alipore, said, "Though the SIR process ‘killed me', I am very much here in the living world. I heard the city will go to polls on April 29, but this time I will not head to the polling booth. Over 2 weeks have passed since the electoral roll was released. Till now, I do not understand what prompted the EC to omit my name and mark me as a dead voter who is very much alive. Is there no punishment for those responsible for sabotaging people's voting rights this way? I was not even called for any hearing."

Many of these voters stated that they turned up for a hearing before EC officials who flipped through their documents, but they fell prey to deletions. "Ahead of the Assembly polls, it is a mental torture for me that, despite having all documents, I shall be prevented from casting my vote this year. Even in 2002, when the SIR was conducted, my name featured on the electoral roll and I exercised my franchise. But this year will be exceptional for me, and I do not know whether I will get my voting right back in the future," rued Dipali Burman, an elector from Tollygunge.

Susanta Datta, a resident of Barrackpore, is still unable to come to terms with the shock that he lost his voting right to the SIR exercise. "Even as I showed all my documents, including my Madhyamik certificate, to the EC officials during the hearing, they decided to keep my name out of the roll.

So, my wife will cast her vote as usual, but I will not accompany her to the booth. If she goes to the booth on my bike, I will have to wait for her outside the booth. I became a voter in the 1990s and never thought that my voting right would be snatched. I must call it a deliberate snatching of my voting right," he said.

Another resident of Sodepur, Pintu Dey, consoled her daughter after the polling dates were announced. "She is crying because her name was omitted from the roll. I took her to the hearing centre, where she queued up and submitted all her documents sought by the EC officials. Despite this, her name was struck off the roll. After the 2021 poll, she could have voted this time, too," said Dey.