Fifty-five-year-old Kusum Dubey stood at the Gopalnagar crossing, holding a copy of the electoral roll published on Saturday. It bore the word “deleted” stamped across her name and photograph.
Dubey, a resident of the Bhowanipore Assembly constituency, was baffled. Her name had appeared on the 2002 voter list, and she had provided it while filing her enumeration form for the SIR this time. Now, she was unsure how to get her name back on the rolls.
“I don’t know what to do now. I have voted in so many elections, but my name has been deleted from the list,” she said, searching for her name in a copy of the roll available with her ward councillor.
Another voter from the same area, 31-year-old Vishal Singh, expressed similar concern. “Despite being a third-generation voter here, my name is ‘under adjudication’,” he said. “The names of my mother, father, grandfather and all others in the family are on the list, but my name is under adjudication.”
Officials at the state chief electoral officer’s (CEO) office said over 60 lakh voters’ names were “under adjudication”.
Around 500 judicial officers are working to decide the fate of these entries. Many voters, however, want clarity on when the adjudication results will be declared and whether they will have sufficient time to appeal before the Assembly elections if their names are struck off.
Lakhs of voters across Calcutta, particularly those who had received SIR hearing notices, spent Saturday anxiously checking the list. In most polling stations, the lists had not been displayed by the evening.
The websites designated by the Election Commission for checking the list were excruciatingly slow. Updated lists became available only in the evening, and many complained that even after downloading the entire voter rolls, the PDF documents would not open. Till late evening, many were unable to access the lists despite repeated attempts.
At a news conference, state CEO Manoj Agarwal said physical copies of the electoral rolls had been distributed to electoral registration officers (EROs) and assistant
EROs. He added that the
online list would go live
from 5.30pm. “Those whose names have been deleted will have 15 days to appeal against the deletion,” he said.
Debalina Biswas, Trinamool councillor of Ward 74, said she had advised those whose names were unjustly deleted to file Form 6, the application required to include names in the electoral rolls. Dubey is a resident of her ward.
“Those under adjudication still have hope of being included. But those like Dubey have no option other than filing a fresh application through Form 6,” Biswas said.
Since Saturday morning, booth-level officers (BLOs) queued at the ERO office to collect physical copies of the electoral rolls. An official at the South Kolkata district election officer’s office said all BLOs had been instructed to remain at polling stations with the rolls on Sunday and await further instructions for Monday.
At the Alipore treasury office, BLOs assembled to collect lists for the Kasba and Jadavpur Assembly constituencies.
CEO Agarwal said at the news conference that publication of voter lists for Bidhannagar and Jadavpur constituencies was delayed due to a software issue.