Much of people’s anger directed at SIR logical discrepancies

Kolkata: Jorasanko resident Sharique Aman (38) queued up at Mutty Lall Seal's Free College on Wednesday for his SIR hearing after an EC notice was slapped on him, asking why his father was named ‘Aman Ali' in the 2002 SIR rolls but ‘Top Aman Ali' in the 2025 SIR draft rolls. The Amans stay on the top floor of their Jorasanko home, and hence, the prefix ‘Top', as apparently deduced by AI from the address details mentioned on the 2002 SIR list.
Pointing at the 2002 SIR rolls, Sharique said, "My father's name is clearly stated as ‘Aman Ali' in the 2002 SIR rolls but they sent me a hearing notice, saying his name appears as ‘Top Aman Ali' in their system. Is this our fault? We live on the top floor, which was stated in 2002, but if the AI misunderstood, what can we do?"Another Jorasanko resident, Md Shahnawaz (34), was visibly angry as he headed to the hearing centre as an extra ‘F' appeared before his father's name on the draft list. "The ‘F' was in our address as ‘F-second floor' but it appeared as ‘F Abdul Rajjak'. What can we do if technology made such a mistake?" he said.The EC has been summoning residents for hearing on finding "logical discrepancies" in the electors' details, which they have slotted in seven categories. First, when more than six people mentioned the name of the same person as a parent. Secondly, if the elector's age is more than 45 years and was not on the 2002 SIR list. Thirdly, if a person's father's name, mentioned in the 2025 draft list, does not match with that in the 2002 SIR rolls. The fourth logical discrepancy is when the age difference between an elector and his/her parent is over 50 years or less than 15 years. If the age difference between an elector and one of his grandparents is less than 40 years, then, too, the EC thinks it is a logical discrepancy. Lastly, gender mismatch is a logical discrepancy. But not all the "discrepancies", complained residents, were their fault. Many were not read with context either by the officials on EC duty or by AI, they claimed. The EC summoned Bidit Mukherjee, a professor at a university, to prove he was the son of Ashani Mukhopadhyay, a former chairman of Barasat Municipality. "How can ‘Mukherjee' and ‘Mukhopadhyay' be considered a logical discrepancy? I was summoned for logical discrepancy for something that is nothing but illogical," Mukherjee said. Similar was the grievance of Hazra resident Spandan Bhattacharjee, who was called for a hearing on Jan 29, as his father's name on the 2002 SIR list appeared as Ashok Bhattacharyya.Resident Tapan Ray was also summoned by the EC as his father's name was mentioned as Amar ‘Roy' in 2002 SIR rolls. "Everyone, except the EC, seems to know that ‘Ray' and ‘Roy' are spelt differently but they are actually the same surname," Ray said. Shahbaz Ajmal (36) from Jorasanko said he was called for a hearing as his father's name was mentioned by five others as their father, too. "But that's natural as we are six siblings. Why didn't they check the address, which is the same for all those six?" Even the EC software has slotted electors with middle names, ‘Kumar' and ‘Chandra', in logical discrepancy category, as they appeared in the 2002 rolls as ‘Kr' and ‘Ch', the short forms. Among the 7 crore electors in the draft SIR rolls, the EC initially identified close to 1.7 crore voters with "logical discrepancies" in their forms. This number later came down to 1.4 crore and further down to 1.2 crore. An EC official said till Tuesday, 1.2 crore among total 1.5 crore hearings were completed and documents of 95 lakh people uploaded. Documents of 55 lakh were verified, the official said.