Trinamool MP from Barasat, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, has accused the Election Commission of acting deliberately to harass her and her family after her 90-year-old mother, two sons and a sister’s name went missing from the draft electoral rolls and they were summoned for the hearing process that started from Saturday.
“My mother and sister have been voters in the same booth where I am registered. My sons are both doctors and well-known, their names have also been left out,” said Ghosh Dastidar, a Lok Sabha MP since 2009 and also the chief whip of the Trinamool in the lower House of Parliament.
Her family members are among the 32 lakh voters summoned by the Election Commission for a primary hearing of “unmapped voters” in the state, that is voters whose linkages with the 2002 electoral rolls could not be established.
“The EC is acting on the instructions of the BJP,” the Trinamool MP said. “They have deleted names from the draft rolls without any reason. My family members are genuine voters. They are Indian citizens and have been voting for many years now.
“If the family members of a sitting MP, the sons of a former state minister do not find their names in the draft rolls, one can only imagine what is going on in the state,” Ghiosh Dastidar said. “The BJP is using any and every means to win the Bengal Assembly polls.”
Kakoli’s mother Ira Mitra and sister Piyali are voters of a booth in Madhyamgram in North 24 Parganas district, while her sons, Biswanath and Baidyanath, are voters in South Kolkata. The mother and daughter were summoned to the Barasat block No. 2 office and the sons in Calcutta.
For the 294 Assembly seats in Bengal, hearings under the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls will be held in 3,234 centres across the state beginning Saturday.
In every Assembly seat, hearings will be held on 11 tables each with a total 3,234 tables. Among these 121 are in Calcutta.
The hearings will be conducted under the supervision of over 4,500 micro-observers, authorised by EROs (electoral registration officers), AROs (assistant returning officers), BLOs (booth-level officers) and observers permitted at the hearing centre.
The commission has allowed 12 documents as proof of identity and address. However, only Aadhaar will not be accepted as proof.
The Bengal BJP downplayed the Trinamool MP’s accusations.
“The EC must have called them because of some mismatch in the documents,” said Rahul Sinha, former president of the BJP’s Bengal unit.
“Over 30 lakh voters have been summoned for the same reason. They just have to attend the hearing and clarify why their names could not be mapped. There is no need to see conspiracy behind everything,” Sinha added.