A 68-year-old man from Bagda in North 24-Parganas has discovered that official records have credited him with three “sons” he claims he never fathered — an anomaly that has now cost his daughter her name on the voters’ list.

Nitya Das, a khol player from Helencha, has approached the district election officer and the block development officer seeking the identities of those three unknown individuals, whose names allegedly surfaced during the Election Commission’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

“This is quite embarrassing since such existence might be construed as a second marriage. Moreover, because of the existence of such persons, my daughter fell victim as she was denied the right to vote for no fault of hers. My name as a parent of six people was considered suspicious and my daughter’s petition was rejected,” Das said.

Das, who has two sons and a daughter, was told during the SIR process that he had children other than Biswajit, Biplab and Pratima.

Despite submitting documents proving Das as her father with details of his 2002 benchmark voters’ list, Pratima’s claim was rejected during the hearing. Officials cited records showing that at least five other individuals were already linked to Das as their father. Of them, only two — Biswajit and Biplab — are his biological sons. The preliminary final voter list subsequently marked Pratima as a deleted voter.

Aggrieved, Das has petitioned the district authorities not only to restore his daughter’s voting rights but also to trace the three unidentified “sons” who appear to have adopted his name in official records.

A bona fide voter at polling station 133 in the Bagdah Assembly segment, Das and his wife Sampatthi — Matuas who migrated from Bangladesh long ago — have been enrolled as voters since before 2002. The couple have three biological children. However, the SIR exercise indicates that at least three additional individuals may have used Das’s name from the 2002 benchmark voters’ list to legitimise
their entries.

Das first appealed to the booth-level officer (BLO) and later to block officials, but received no clarity.

“I am really anxious about my daughter’s voting rights as well as about the possibility of any foul play by those three persons who used my name. So I have appealed the DEO seeking the whereabouts of those three persons,” said Das, who expressed the fear that such identities could one day be used to stake claims on his property.

Pratima described her ordeal: “In the enumeration form, I submitted my father’s name with his details from the 2002 voters list. Nevertheless, I was served a notice, and during the hearing, the officials outrightly rejected my submission, citing that already five persons are linked to my father’s name. I have two other siblings, but three others could not
be known.”

Her case reflects a broader pattern emerging from the SIR exercise, where multiple names have been deleted if an unusually high number of individuals are linked to a single parent. While there is no prohibition on large families, such cases are flagged for stricter scrutiny.

An official of the district election cell said: “The EC is being extra cautious. If one parent is linked to a large number of children, the system treats it as suspicious because many fake or duplicate voter entries in the past used the same parent’s name. So, they may not accept parental linkage alone in such cases and ask for more documents. It’s not a rule against big families, rather just a way to verify records
more strictly.”

Anju Das Poddar, the BLO of polling station 133 and a local gram panchayat member of the BJP, expressed concern over the outcome.

“Several persons illegally established their names with persons enrolled on the 2002 voters list, making the genuine ones victims. I tried my best to pursue the officials at the block office during the hearing, but the system did not accept her submission,”
she said.

Polling station 133 has 610 voters, of whom 97 have been disenfranchised following the revision.

An official of the North 24-Parganas district administration said: “This is quite natural, and such discrepancies occurred to several people. If this instant case is an authentic one, the person should immediately appeal to the appellate tribunal for restoration of her name on the voter list.