SIR divides families from Kol to Darjeeling

Kolkata: The SIR exercise has split families apart.

After the final voter list was published on Feb 28, several families found that while some members could make it to the electoral roll, their immediate kin had either been deleted or placed "under adjudication".


This issue was flagged when TOI spoke to Manabendra Ghosh, father of Indian World Cup-winning cricketer Richa Ghosh, and senior Bengal minister Shashi Panja. Richa's parents are on the final voter list but she and her sister, Somashree, are marked for judicial adjudication. For Panja, she is the only member of her household, including her husband and children, whose name has been placed under adjudication.

As TOI spoke with more citizens, similar stories emerged, raising questions about the manner in which the SIR was conducted.

Tollygunge resident Sudip Roy Chowdhury, who has lived in the city since his birth in 1965, faces an SIR-led divide at the age of 60. While he is under adjudication on the electoral roll, the Election Commission (EC) approved his wife's voting rights without question. "I have no idea why my voting right is in question when I have all the documents to prove them. I have lived in this city since birth, and I don't know what my fault is. My wife and I submitted our enumeration forms together. I attended the hearing and submitted every document requested, yet I have been marked under adjudication," Roy Chowdhury said.

For Sealdah resident Soumik Bhattacharya, everyone in his family except him is on the electoral roll. "Only the EC can explain why they put me under adjudication despite checking my EC-specified documents. During the hearing, I even submitted the 2002 SIR list that had my name. I request the commission to explain the logic behind this," he said.

Jadavpur resident Arup Ghosh, a communications veteran and former journalist, said, "My wife, daughter, and I applied for new voter cards. Strangely, only my daughter's name was included. We are missing. All three of us hold valid passports. We are mystified and have been told our papers will be reviewed. We just have to wait."

For retired Army man Partha Ghosh, Saturday brought a shock when he learned he was under adjudication. But his 25-year-old son, Gaurav, who attended the hearing with him, made it to the new list. "How can I be under adjudication?" he said. The Amdanga resident served in the Indian Army from June 1990 to July 2016, retiring as a Subedar Nyayik. He currently serves as a Laskar at Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port. "If I am a ‘foreigner', how could I have served in the Army? I was posted outside Bengal, so I couldn't vote most times. Even my wife, Soma, wasn't in the 2002 SIR, but she linked her documents to her father and wasn't called for a hearing."

In the Darjeeling Hills, the exclusion of Avinash Gurung (36) and Nand Gurung (38), son and daughter of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) chief Bimal Gurung, has sparked political speculations ahead of the Assembly elections. Both were placed ‘under adjudication' on the final list. The GJM, a decisive player in the region and an ally of the BJP, is credited with securing the BJP's stronghold in the Darjeeling Lok Sabha constituency.

TOI has also reported the ordeal faced by Yasin Pathan, a crusader for communal harmony and 1994 Presidential Award (Kabir Purkar) recipient for his dedication to preserving 42 Hindu temples in Pathra. While Pathan and his wife are on the final list, the names of his son, Tasbir Pathan Badshah, and daughters, Tania Parveen and Tamanna Parveen, are marked as ‘under adjudication'.