Samed Sheikh, 50, a migrant labourer from Samserganj in Murshidabad, received a phone call from his wife Najema Biwi, 43, while he was working at a construction site in Meerut on December 28.
Samed’s wife informed him that a notice had reached their home asking the migrant worker to appear for a special intensive revision (SIR) hearing at the local block development office on December 31. The notice had been issued the same day, leaving him barely three days to reach his home, almost 1,400km away from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.
With no time to plan and no chance of securing a reserved train ticket, Samed first travelled by bus to Delhi and boarded the Farakka Express from the Old Delhi Railway station, squeezing into a crowded general compartment. For much of the long journey home, he stood amid a sea of fellow migrant workers — many from Bengal — who were all racing against time to attend similar hearings.
“The BLO served the notice on December 28, just three days before the hearing. With little time, no reservation could be managed. I had to travel almost half the journey standing in a packed compartment, along with many labourers like me, most of whom were also rushing back to Bengal for the hearings,” Samed said.
The reason behind his ordeal was an entry made over two decades ago, when his name appeared in the 2002 electoral roll simply as “Samed”, without his surname, triggering the present summons to clarify his identity before the Election Commission.
The sudden call to travel home, at the height of the working season, came at a high cost.
“I had planned to return home before Ramzan in February, but I had to come back much earlier. I need at least ₹15,000 a month to run my family and support my four children, who are all students. Now, I will have to stay here for around 15 days before the work is completed and then travel back to Meerut. This means a huge financial loss, but ensuring proper enrolment on the voters’ list is very important. Altogether, this has caused a loss of about ₹15,000. This problem could have been avoided if there had been a provision for an online hearing,” the migrant worker said.
Rahim Sheikh, 28, of Bogdadnagar village in Samserganj, who earns his livelihood as a mason at Kollam in Kerala, had a similar story to tell. His summons stemmed from an error in his father’s name in the Election Commission’s benchmark electoral roll
of 2002.
A BLO served the notice at his home on December 28, asking him to appear before the hearing panel on December 30.
Rahim learnt about it over the phone, with less than 48 hours to make the journey back, which entails covering a distance of nearly 2,600km.
Getting a reservation at such short notice was impossible. As he did not have many options, Rahim boarded the Thiruvananthapuram–Shalimar Express at Kollam without any reservation. Packed into a general compartment and without a seat for much of the journey, he finally reached home late on December 30, nearly 10 hours after the day’s hearings had concluded.
The hearing has been rescheduled for January 5, forcing him to remain at home for at least six more days during the peak working season, compounding his losses.
“Such late notice put me in tremendous difficulty. I went through physical, financial and mental torment. The journey was horrible. I managed to get a seat only after entering Odisha,” Rahim said.
“This sudden and unplanned summons could have been avoided with an alternative arrangement for people like us who work outside. I have been working in Kerala for the past five years.”
Samed and Rahim are far from isolated cases. Thousands of migrant labourers from Murshidabad and other districts of Bengal are being compelled to undertake similar rushed and exhausting journeys, often in overcrowded trains, and sometimes hiring buses to ensure their names are registered on the voters’ list.
For many, the choice is stark: lose wages and endure hardship, or risk having their name excluded from the electoral roll, a document increasingly seen as essential to their very existence as citizens.
SIR hearings are being conducted simultaneously across Bengal’s 294 Assembly constituencies from December 27. The Election Commission has said that once the hearing process is completed, the final electoral roll will be published on February 14.
However, with notices in many cases being served barely 48 hours before the scheduled hearing, migrant workers find themselves scrambling to return home in time, often without seats and at a high financial cost.
“It is a matter of ensuring our own existence. Being enrolled on the voters’ list has become more important than anything else. That is why we are sacrificing our earnings, so that we can remain in the country with pride,” Rahim said.
The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday urged the Election Commission to introduce provisions for virtual hearings for electors residing outside Bengal, citing the acute hardships being faced by migrant workers compelled to attend physical proceedings.
Trinamool MP Partha Bhowmick said a large number of migrant labourers and other residents living outside the state were encountering severe practical difficulties in appearing for in-person hearings, and that permitting virtual hearings would ensure that the names of genuine voters were not unfairly excluded from the electoral rolls.
The representation sought a time-bound response from the chief electoral officer, Bengal, Manoj Kumar Agarwal. However, till Thursday, the Election Commission had issued no directive allowing online hearings for those staying outside the state, leaving migrant workers to continue bearing the brunt of the disruption and distress.
Samserganj BDO Sujit Kumar Lodh said: “After receiving the notice, those who are unable to attend the hearing within the stipulated period because of being out of the house can submit a written application citing specific reasons, and a second hearing date will be scheduled for them later.”