A Trinamool Congress councillor of Hooghly’s Dankuni municipality on Tuesday sat in an hour-long protest at a local crematorium after he found his name listed as dead in the draft electoral roll published earlier in the day.
“I duly filled up the enumeration form, mapping my details with my father’s name from the 2002 electoral roll, as I was not an eligible voter during that period. However, as soon as the draft electoral roll was published today and I checked the list, I discovered that my name had been marked as a dead voter,” said Surya Dey, who represents ward 18 at Dankuni.
Dey, along with a group of Trinamool workers, went to the local Kalitala crematorium and demanded that the Election Commission formally perform his last rites, as the EC had declared him dead in the draft roll.
“This is a complete conspiracy by the commission, which is hand in glove with the BJP, to eliminate the names of genuine voters. I am a councillor, and my name was listed as dead. Then what would be the situation of common people?” asked the Trinamool councillor.
In his enumeration form, Dey had furnished details of his father, Sanatan Dey, with reference to the 2002 electoral rolls. Dey is a resident of Hooghly’s Chanditala Assembly constituency.
The EC on Tuesday published the draft electoral roll featuring the names of 7.08 crore voters, while around 58 lakh names were removed under the categories of absentee, shifted, dead, and duplicate voters.
Asked about his next course of action regarding the glitch, Dey said he would lodge an official complaint with the electoral body to re-register himself as a genuine and living voter.
A senior EC official said that Dey could approach the local booth-level officer with his grievance to have the error corrected.
BJP leader Amit Malviya said: “It appears that the BLO had submitted a list of ASDD names in which Surya Dey’s name did not figure. This list was also signed by the concerned TMC BLA2. Subsequently, however, Surya Dey’s name mysteriously appeared during the uploading of the EF form.”
He added on X: “I am told that the ECI has since issued show-cause notices to the BLO, the AERO, and the ERO. Someone is likely to lose their job for allowing themselves to be used as a pawn in TMC’s ‘discredit the SIR’ game....”
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday evening held a meeting with a group of Trinamool booth-level agents (BLAs) and directed them to check the draft rolls and identify genuine voters whose names were deleted under any category.
“She has asked all the BLAs to visit the doorsteps of voters whose names are missing from the draft roll and help them lodge specific complaints if they are genuine voters,” a source said.
In the next step, the EC will start issuing notices to voters found to be doubtful.
Mamata has already announced that the state government will open “May I Help You” counters across Bengal to assist voters.