The Cooch Behar Trinamool Congress on Wednesday paraded “dead” voters to question the integrity of the special intensive revision (SIR) process, alleging large-scale discrepancies in the draft poll roll in the district a day after the Election Commission published it.
At a news meet, the party's district president Abhijit De Bhowmik presented voters of the Cooch Behar South Assembly constituency, Ashwini Adhikari and his wife Shivani, residents of booth 54 under the Falimari gram panchayat in Cooch Behar-1 block. Both have been listed as "dead" in the draft list.
He also referred to other living voters listed as dead such as Alimon Bewa, a resident of booth 204 under the Natabari Assembly constituency in Cooch Behar and Rahul Hossain of booth 118 of Mathabhanga Assembly constituency.
De Bhowmik, accompanied by Ashwini and Shivani, launched a scathing attack on the EC and the Centre.
“Those who are alive are being shown as dead, while those who have gone outside the district for work are being marked 'untraceable’. There are many voters in Cooch Behar who have been casting their votes regularly, and yet their names do not figure in the draft list. This is not a mistake but a gross inconsistency. Many such facts are coming to light,” he said.
Ashwini, a 55-year-old daily wage worker, said he was bewildered at being presumed dead.
“We do not know why this happened or whether this error will be corrected. We are banking on the district-level Trinamool leaders who are looking into the matter,” he said. His wife Shivani said she never expected they would be called dead in their lifetime.
Trinamool’s Falimari regional committee president Narayan Barman called the errors "serious and unacceptable". “The Adhikaris are Rajbanshis and permanent residents of the area. They voted in 2002 and their names were on the 2025 voter list. Now the draft roll calls them dead. The Election Commission must take responsibility,” he said.