Aziz or Awasthi, what’s in a name? Ask SIR-struck CPM state secretary Md Salim and his 35-year-old younger son, Atish Aziz.
At the end of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list, the Election Commission of India uploaded the draft electoral roll on Tuesday morning.
Like most voters, Atish scanned the draft electoral roll to check whether the names of his own and that of his family members were there in the newly-drawn-up draft list.
“When I first cursorily scanned the list, there seemed to be nothing amiss. Names of our family members appeared as they should,” said Atish, who is a voter of the Kolkata Port Assembly constituency.
“Later, when I revisited the draft electoral roll for a minute scan of voter details, I found a north Indian surname, Awasthi, appearing against the last name column. Though other details appear in both English and Bengali, the last name was only in Bengali,” Atish, a techie whose Facebook profile describes him as a digital creator, said.
The addition was not just to Atish’s voter details. What surprised him even more was his father Md Salim, enlisted as a relative, with Awasthi as the surname.
Awasthi is a popular surname among Brahmins in north India, mainly Uttar Pradesh.
Atish wondered if the error had crept in because the right people had not been engaged to do the job.
When Atish checked Salim’s own voter details, there was nothing wrong.
In a sarcastic post on Facebook, Atish wrote: “Now I find ECI has made me a Brahmin and with me Md Salim too.”
Amused over an additional surname to his name in Atish’s voter details, Salim launched a political attack on the EC.
“The error shows that a serious exercise like the SIR has been taken very lightly by the EC. While the EC did not take adequate preparations or the technical support required for the exercise, the poll panel also did not impart the necessary training to officials undertaking the job. The CEO and the chief election commissioner have turned SIR into a farcical exercise,” the CPM leader told The Telegraph.
Asked what they intend to do to correct the error, Atish said: “We have informed the booth-level agent of our party (CPM). They will help us do the needful.”
Sources in the poll panel said if there was any error in the draft electoral roll, the voter could contact the booth-level officer, who would be available in his/ her booth for the next one month.
“The BLO will help voters rectify the errors. The electors can also fill in Form 8 to make changes in spellings of names online with relevant documents. The changes will reflect in the final rolls to be published on February 14 next year,” an official in the Bengal CEO’s office said.