'Typo' triggers SIR notice to Amartya, TMC cries 'insult'

BOLPUR/KOLKATA: An SIR notice summoning Nobel laureate Amartya Sen to a hearing over a discrepancy that Election Commission has since identified as a "spelling error" led Trinamool Congress to claim on Tuesday that it was an "affront to Bengal and an icon who brought global recognition to India".

EC clarified that Sen needn't report at the designated office in Birbhum district's Bolpur to get the error rectified. A BLO will visit Pratichi, the Harvard economist's ancestral residence in Santiniketan, to do the needful, it said.




MP and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, whose party has flagged multiple alleged anomalies in the ongoing SIR exercise, said the notice served on Sen reflected how "influential voices in Bengal" were being "systematically targeted".

"This is not an isolated insult. Actor Dev and cricketer Mohammed Shami were also served notices. As if achievement, integrity and dignity mean nothing any more," he said at a public event in Birbhum. "Nobel laureate Amartya Sen carried India's intellect and values onto the world stage. Today, even a public figure of his stature stands humiliated by BJP-controlled EC."

Abhishek urged the state's electorate to "drive out forever BJP agents who want to unmap the people of Bengal".

District officials said Amita Sen, the Nobel laureate's late mother, was on the electoral rolls during the 2002 SIR in Bengal. Sen, who has spent much of his life abroad, registered as a voter in Bengal in 2014 and voted in Lok Sabha election that year.

When the current SIR process in the state began on Nov 4, an SIR enumeration form was issued in Sen's name. His cousin Santabhanu Sen submitted the filled-in form to the BLO. "We are still to receive the hard copy of the notice that we hear has been generated. The caretaker (of Pratichi) informs me about any mail that is delivered there," Santabhanu told TOI.
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