Appeal office shut, deaf-mute man ‘denied’ vote by SIR files plea online

Kolkata: Deaf and mute youth Sanu Hela, whose name was struck off the electoral roll in south Kolkata, filed his appeal for tribunal hearing on Friday. The 23-year-old from Charu Chandra Avenue is praying that the tribunal appellate authority considers his "silent" plea and restores his voting right so that he gets to exercise the franchise for the second time in his life.The youth, who also has partial Down syndrome, cast vote for the first time in 2024 Lok Sabha election. He is still unable to come to terms with the shock that his voting right has been "disabled" two years after his first visit to the polling station.Accompanied by his father Raju Hela, who is also a ‘deleted' voter, the disabled elector went to the Survey Building at Alipore to file the appeal in offline mode on Thursday afternoon, but they could not do so for want of a written application. The father-son duo visited the same govt office, armed with the application, on Friday, but they had to come back as "no official was at work" because of the govt holiday. Later, they filed the appeal online, taking the help of others at a cyber cafe."The gate of the building was open and I went upstairs where some officials were there. First they asked me to come the next day as Friday was a govt holiday. Then they said that being busy with other election-related works, they were unable to digitise and upload appeals. My son is depressed since his name was removed from the electoral roll. So, I took him to a local cyber cafe and sought the assistance of its owner to file the appeal online," said the youth's father.On Thursday evening, Raju, who runs a roadside food stall, got two appeals drafted after his first visit to the govt office. "If the work was not to be done today, why did they ask us to come? I am not familiar with doing anything online, so I wanted to opt for the offline mode of filing appeal," he said.Even after filing their appeals online, the disabled youth and his father were unsure whether that was done properly and that would reach the tribunal. "I am not educated, nor did I know how to do anything online. That is why, I wanted to do it with the help of officials at the govt office. It was mentioned in the supplementary list that the appeal for tribunal would have to be filed in 15 days after its publication. So, I did not take any risk to defer the filing work even by a day," he said.