Hundreds of thousands of voters in Bengal are one final adjudication away from losing their right to vote in democratic India. Yet, most have little clarity on how to navigate the process.
Those whose names have been deleted from the electoral rolls must file appeals challenging the Election Commission’s decision. Ironically, the same commission decides how, when and where these appeals can be submitted.
Nineteen tribunals, headed by retired high court judges, have been set up to decide applications from voters contesting their deletion. But there is no clarity on when the tribunals will start functioning or whether voters will be allowed to present their cases in person. Lack of transparency and variable deadlines are just a few of the obstacles applicants face.
More than 60 lakh names were under adjudication in the post-SIR voter list published on February 28. Of these, around 47 lakh names had been adjudicated by March 31, according to the poll panel.
A central help cell for affected voters alone receives over 1,000 calls every day. The cell has branches in every district, and only a fraction of queries are handled by the central team.
“The scale of the crisis is hard to believe. We have been getting between 1,000 and 1,500 calls daily. In the districts, the numbers are even higher,” said Arindam Bhattacharya, a lawyer heading the Left-backed legal aid cell.
“The battle is harder because in any appeal challenging voter deletion, the EC must be the respondent. A respondent should not decide how the appeal is filed. But that is exactly what is happening,” he added.
On Tuesday, a Calcutta-based research organisation launched a legal aid cell for deleted voters. The Trinamool is also providing free legal help.
Website hurdles
The appeal window is not fixed. The 15-day period begins from the date of individual rejection rather than a uniform date, creating a moving target that is difficult for many to track.
At least six supplementary lists have been published so far. The day a list is published is considered Day 0 for those removed from it.
Voters can submit appeals online via the EC website and app, but the system requires Aadhaar-voter card linkage. “Many do not have their Aadhaar linked to their voter cards, so they cannot receive OTPs and are blocked from filing appeals online. This effectively excludes the poorest applicants,” said one lawyer assisting voters.
The system also enforces a strict 1,000-word limit; exceeding it leads to automatic rejection.
“Our monitoring reveals a systemic failure leading toward a humanitarian emergency. The current appeal process is fraught with barriers that deny citizens their democratic rights,” said Sabir Ahamed of Sabar Institute, which set up the legal aid cell.
Offline chaos
Voters can submit physical appeals to the subdivisional officer or district magistrate (also the district electoral officer or DEO), who digitise and upload them.
Officials in the office of Bengal’s chief electoral officer have advised applicants to insist on acknowledgement of submissions, but tours of DEO offices showed a different picture.
Of the three DEO offices Metro visited on Thursday, only one issued any form of acknowledgement. At the Directorate of Land Records and Surveys on Gopal Nagar Road, or the Survey Building, in Alipore — the south Calcutta DEO office — a notice directed voters to submit appeals at the receiving section on the first floor.
Outside the receiving section, a larger notice was posted on the door. A man stamped photocopies of submissions for applicants to retain.
At the Jessop Building on NS Road in Dalhousie, the north Calcutta DEO’s office had a drop box for “submission of petition to tribunal SIR-2026”. Reaching the box on the second floor, however, was challenging, with several applicants being directed to different corners by multiple officials — some wearing government IDs — before they found it.
At the Treasury Building in Alipore, DEO South 24-Parganas’ office, voters were told that physical applications were not being received yet.