Confusion, queues, goof-ups mark 2 months of SIR in Bengal

KOLKATA: Sunday marked two months of the SIR rollout in Bengal as people struggle to get back something as basic as their voting right amid confusion among officials over which documents are kosher, multiple orders from Election Commission, flip-flops, and innumerable goof-ups.

The chaotic drive led CM Mamata Banerjee to write on Saturday to chief election commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar to either "rectify glitches" or halt the "unplanned, arbitrary and ad-hoc" SIR of electoral rolls.




Banerjee asked the CEC why Bengal was being "singled out" for "arbitrary and illegal" voter deletions. This was her fourth letter to Kumar since SIR began.

Jayanti Devi (80) was one face of the confusion. Laden with a bag of medicines and documents, she stood clueless outside an SIR hearing camp at Chetla Boys' High School in Kolkata Sunday. She was asked to come for a second hearing with an old ration card or her parents' documents. "I cannot hear or see properly. I can hardly walk... I don't have many documents, but I have a voter card. I have always cast my vote. Now they are saying there is a problem," she said.

Jayanti's son said they had not been told of the EC order that voters aged 85 or more, as well as those who are sick or disabled, will not be called to such hearings. "They (EC officials) did come, but only to inform us about the hearing date. My parents moved to Chetla in 1967. She has been voting here since," he said.

At Kalighat High School, Sister John Paul of the Missionaries of Charity had to appear for a hearing for putting Sister Nirmala in the column for her "parent's name" - the standard practice among all such orders and one acknowledged by EC.

A Goan, Sister Paul came to Bengal in 2002 - the reference year for SIR in Bengal. In 2006, she had her voter and Aadhaar cards made and Sister Nirmala, then superior general of missionaries of charity, was named her guardian in the documents. "I did not have my birth certificate with me. My sister sent it to me. It's absolute chaos," the 46-year-old said. Around 10 nuns of the order have received hearing notices.

Roma Samanta, a voter in Kolkata's Rashbehari, got a hearing notice as her name was mixed up with a namesake from Kaliaganj in North Dinajpur district, over 400km away. "We have been living here for 30 years... Our BLO told us to write a letter to the CEO. We have come to submit that," Samanta's husband said.

In her letter to the CEC, the CM highlighted some of these hassles. "Family register, extensively accepted as valid proof of identity during the SIR exercise in Bihar, is now reportedly being denied... such selective and unexplained exclusion of a previously accepted document raises serious concerns of discrimination and arbitrariness," Banerjee wrote.

The CM claimed residence/domicile certificates issued by state authorities were also being rejected. Calling EC insensitive, CM said even the "elderly, infirm, and seriously ill citizens are not being spared". "Many electors are being compelled to travel 20-25km to attend hearings, which have inexplicably been centralised rather than decentralised," she wrote.

Amid the outcry, the poll panel announced 160 more SIR hearing centres, mostly in north Bengal. The new centres will be set up keeping in mind geographical constraints and distance for voters, EC officials said.
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