The Election Commission will publish a list of 94.5 lakh voters with logical discrepancies in Bengal, a number whittled down from 1.67 crore following verification through booth-level officers (BLOs).
However, after Monday’s Supreme Court order to the EC directing that the names of those on the “logical discrepancies” list be displayed at panchayat, ward and block offices in Bengal, questions on whether the poll panel could have averted the harassment of voters have emerged.
“We will start working to publish the list as soon as we get the Supreme Court order.... We have already published a list of 58 lakh absent, dead, shifted and duplicate voters whose enumeration forms did not reach us. So, it will not be a major issue to publish names of voters with logical discrepancies,” said a poll
panel official.
According to sources in the poll panel, the list of voters with logical discrepancies can be broken down into five main categories.
- Name mismatch with parents: There were 50.93 lakh voters flagged with logical discrepancies in their enumeration forms due to a mismatch in names of parents with that in the 2002 rolls. The most common mismatch: spelling.
- Too many children: There were 28.48 lakh voters flagged under this category, with a set of six or more of these voters linking themselves as children of voters in the 2002 list.
- Age gap less than 15 years with parents: 4.74 lakh voters came under the scanner of the poll panel as the age gap between them and their parents was less than 15 years — controversially, Amartya Sen and his mother Amita Sen. The poll panel felt it was highly unlikely that so many people became parents at such an early age.
- Age gap more than 50 years with parents: As many as 7.85 lakh voters drew the EC’s attention as the age gap between them and their parents was over 50 years. The EC believed it was highly doubtful that so many voters became parents at such a late age.
- Age gap below 40 years with grandparents: A total of 2.50 lakh voters mapped themselves with 2002 voters as their grandparents with an age gap less than 40 years. The EC was not ready to accept that so many people became grandparents before they became 40.
Sources in the poll panel said that soon after the system of the poll panel had flagged 1.67 crore voters with logical discrepancies, they tried to cut down the list by resolving the issue of mismatch of parents’ names due to spelling errors.
“The BLOs resolved issues related to mismatch of parents’ names of about 72 lakh voters by visiting voter homes. But the BLOs could not clear doubts related to 94.5 lakh voters. This was why it was decided to call these voters for hearings.
However, a section of EC officials said that the number of discrepancies over the mismatch of the spellings of parents’ names could have been handled more carefully.
“The problem of mismatch of parents’ names occurred mainly due to the use of tech to translate the names of the 2002 rolls, which were in Bengali, to English. Many names were misspelt because of this. This issue could have been resolved by sending the BLOs to voter homes and collecting the required papers. Had this been done, harassment of more than 50 lakh voters could have been averted,” said an official.