24 hours after EC deadline, only 2 Kolkata booths get ‘logical discrepancy’ & ‘unmapped’ lists

KOLKATA: The wait to see the ‘logical discrepancy' list grew longer on Sunday — a day after Election Commission's deadline — with only a couple of ward offices in Alipore and Deshbandhu School in north Kolkata displaying it. Few among those who could see this list were left frustrated and angry.

After news spread on Sunday evening that a list of voters with ‘logical discrepancy' was put up at Alipore's ward 74 office, people came to check their names. But across the rest of Kolkata, neither the voters nor the BLOs had any knowledge of when this list would be published.


Bengal chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal tried to calm the anxiety. He told reporters, "Everything will be available in time. The downloading (of the list) is being done. There are 80,000-plus BLOs who are doing this task. Some have already downloaded the same and put them up in public. The rest will be done soon. Today is Sunday. Tomorrow is Jan 26 (a holiday). But all data was shared on Saturday."

Among those who came to Alipore to see their names on the list was a grieving 53-year-old Zaiada Khatoon, who will have to attend a hearing on Jan 27. She and her husband, Naushad Ali, filled the SIR form in Nov. But Ali passed away last month after a heart attack, after which Zaiada is frantically looking for documents.

According to BLA Sanjay Chakraborty of part 83, Zaiada's name and her husband's name were not mentioned clearly in the list published, but Zaiada's EPIC number was there. The couple's names were there in the 2002 SIR list. "I was there when she and her husband filled up the form in Nov. All details are also there in the 2002 list. Then how does a mistake happen? It's definitely a glitch," Sanjay said, adding, "Imagine a person grieving her husband's death is now being burdened with a hearing call for logical discrepancy for the fault which was not hers."

An elector from part 113 under ward 74, Abhijit Das, found his name on the list. His father's name, Shib Narayan Das, was spelt as ‘Sib'. "Now, for a missing ‘h', I have to run for a hearing. How is it fair?" he said.

42-year-old Kasrin Begum has 4 kids. Both Kasrin and her husband, Md Raju, were called for SIR hearing on Wednesday at 1 pm. The EC list shows she has 6 siblings, but she has 5 siblings. Her husband, whose name was in the 2002 SIR list, was called for age discrepancy.

Most of the BLOs in the city stated that they were kept in the dark about the list. Arup Mondal, a BLO in Tollygunge, said, "Electors in my part are calling me to know when the list will be displayed. Till now, I did not have any correspondence with EC officials about the list. Even I don't know if BLOs will have any role to put it up."

Another BLO from Bhowanipore said, "People at hearing are asking me about the list, but I have no answer. BLOs like us were kept in the dark about this matter."

Dinesh Kumar Chandra, a voter who was unaware that such a list was displayed at the north Kolkata hearing centre, said, "I didn't see anything like that at the hearing centre, nor was I informed so that I could ask them to show it. However, I would like to say that this is nothing but harassment, as my father has a space between Kamala and Kanta that was missing in the SIR roll. I was called to clarify this discrepancy. But who made the mistake?"

(Inputs from Sarthak Ganguly & Poulami Roy Banerjee)


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