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regular-article-logo Saturday, 07 March 2026

BLO who worked on roll revision finds family ‘under adjudication’ in Bengal voter list

The family said their daughter had worked extensively on the SIR process, which has now raised questions about their voting rights

Subhajoy Roy Published 07.03.26, 08:02 AM
Protesters against SIR in Park Circus on Thursday

Protesters against SIR in Park Circus on Thursday Sanat Kr Sinha

A booth-level officer from Beniapukur and her family have found their names marked “under adjudication” in the revised electoral rolls published on February 28, leaving the family deeply hurt.

The family said their daughter had worked extensively on the SIR process, which has now raised questions about their voting rights.

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The four-member family — parents Rashid Hasan, 67, and Sarwat Hasan, 57, and their children Samina Hasan, 40, and Rashad Hasan, 38 — faces uncertainty over whether they will be able to vote in the Assembly elections.

“What if we are finally excluded from the list and cannot vote in the Assembly election? What will happen if the Election Commission uses this year’s election as a precedent and prevents us from including our names in the list in the future?” asked Rashad, who runs a data analytics firm.

Samina, Rashad’s sister, is the BLO for a part of the Ballygunge Assembly constituency.

During the roll revision process, BLOs distributed enumeration forms to voters and later collected the filled-up forms. They also served hearing notices on voters and were present during the hearings.

A municipal ward is divided into several parts, and multiple wards together make up an Assembly constituency.

Rashad said his sister had worked long hours during the revision exercise. “My sister worked day and night to ensure no genuine voter was left out of the list. I have seen her work past midnight on many days because the part she was assigned had about 1,200 voters when the SIR began. It is very disappointing to see that she and the rest of the family are now ‘under adjudication’,” he said on Friday.

The parents, Rashid and Sarwat, had their names in the 2002 electoral rolls. When filling the enumeration forms this year, their children used their father’s name for mapping.

The family received hearing notices and submitted documents. “My father and I submitted our passports, while my mother and sister submitted their board exam admit cards,” Rashad said. The family also submitted extracts from the 2002 electoral rolls showing the parents’ names.

However, when the revised rolls were published, they found the words “under adjudication” stamped across all four names.

Rashid is a retired employee of Braithwaite and Company, a government of India undertaking.

State chief electoral officer Manoj Agarwal had said about 60.06 lakh voters across Bengal have been marked “under adjudication” in the revised rolls. Their cases are being examined by judicial officers.

An EC official said on Friday that 6.5 lakh of these cases had been decided by Thursday evening, but it could not be ascertained how many had been included in the rolls.

Several under review voters are worried. Many said it remains unclear whether they will have enough time to appeal if their names are removed. Some also fear that if their names are struck off the rolls, the process of getting them restored could be long, harassing and humiliating.

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