The dread of disenfranchisement is outweighing the deterrent of the physical torment forced on the elderly and the ill at the SIR hearings in Bengal.
But their anger at the burden of proof being placed on citizens — many of them hauled up for mere typos in official documents — is bubbling over.
The elderly are appalled at being summoned at their age to prove that they are genuine voters, after having taken part in elections for decades.
The alleged lack of clarity around the process has amplified the problem.
Almost none of the voters summoned are told the specific reason for the call — the booth-level officers phoning and telling them about the hearing seem not to know. Worse, even after the hearing, voters remain unsure whether the job is done.
On Monday evening, the Election Commission said the hearings for voters aged 85 and above, pregnant women, and the ailing would be conducted at their homes.
(See East)
Bela Chakraborty, 80 years old, hunched, her hair white and face marked by deep wrinkles, arrived at a library in Behala Barisha on Monday for her hearing. She had been unable to fill in her details from the 2002 rolls.
Her niece accompanied Chakraborty, who needs help to walk. But age had not dimmed the sharpness of her mind, nor the ability to speak it.
“When I first saw a polling booth, I must have been 10 years old. I remember party symbols that no longer exist. I remember my parents voting for a pair of bullocks carrying a yoke (the original symbol of the Congress),” Chakraborty said.
“As children, we would get sweets and savouries from party workers for chanting their slogans. I make it a point not to miss voting, be it any election, because I want to assert my right as a citizen. I find it hard to believe that I will have to prove that I am a genuine voter after so many years.”
The SIR hearings in Bengal began on Saturday, with voters who could not link themselves to the 2002 rolls, and many others, crowding the 3,200-odd hearing centres across the state.
An elderly man outside the hearing centre in Behala.
Around 32 lakh voters are being summoned in the first leg of the hearing, poll panel officials have said. An exercise billed as a drive to weed out “infiltrators” is, however, being increasingly seen as an additional burden on citizens with the longest association with the country’s electoral process.
Over the past couple of days, heartbreaking images have flooded television and mobile screens.
An octogenarian arrived in a wheelchair at a hearing centre in Chinsurah, Hooghly, a tube fitted to his neck for breathing. He could barely speak.
The elderly man’s nephew told a reporter: “His name is on the 2002 list, but the spelling is slightly different. That is why he had to be brought here.”
At a centre in Durgapur, a woman with a pronounced stoop panted after every couple of steps. She had come with her son-in-law.
“I rarely step out of home, but I had to come here,” was all she could muster.
Pankaj Mehta, 69, a voter in Bowbazar, turned up for his hearing at a college on BB Ganguly Street. His name is missing from the 2002 rolls; he doesn’t know why.
“My elder brother’s name is on the 2002 list. He is dead now. I have brought his documents -- whatever I could find of them,” Mehta said.
“I have been voting for so many years; why should I have to prove that I am a genuine voter?”
A 71-year-old stood in a queue in New Alipore because his middle name is missing from the 2002 list but appears on his current voter card.
“The Election Commission has issued me with a voter card with the full name. I have been voting on the basis of that voter card. Then why this harassment?” he asked, requesting not to be named to avoid any more problems.
Many others too requested anonymity out of the same fear.
Most hearing centres lacked a separate queue for senior citizens, and the handful of scattered chairs were far short of requirement. Many had to stand in line for hours.
At a library in Barisha, part of the Behala West constituency, the hearing was supposed to start at noon. Some of the senior citizens waited from an hour before.
Bimal Chandra Das, 82, was among them. He had come with his younger brother, Sankar.
“Since suffering an accident, he (Bimal) can’t move his waist properly. Even walking for five minutes is a challenge for him,” Sankar said.
Bimal, who retired from the state police, has lived in various police quarters for much of his life.
“Some of his documents have been misplaced. His name is spelt ‘Bimal Das’ in some of the documents he still possesses and ‘Bimal Chandra Das’ in the rest,” his brother said.
They had come with Bimal’s pension payment order (PPO), which mentions the full “Bimal Chandra Das”.
“The officer inside said this should be enough. But there is no certainty, that’s the biggest problem,” Sankar said.