Several citizens’ groups on Monday demanded that the Bengal Assembly elections be conducted on the basis of the pre-SIR electoral rolls if the adjudication of more than 60 lakh voters cannot be completed before the polls.

They said listing voters as “under adjudication” could be the first step towards marking them as doubtful voters and eventually questioning their citizenship.

In a memorandum submitted to the state’s chief electoral officer (CEO), the groups demanded a time-bound and transparent disposal of all cases under adjudication.

A clutch of organisations, many of them working for the welfare of minorities, staged a sit-in near the office of the Bengal CEO on Monday afternoon. They submitted the memorandum under the banner of Sangbidhan Banchao-Bangla Banchao Mancha.

“There is a fear among many of those who are under adjudication that this is the first step to questioning their citizenship. Now they are under adjudication, next they might be called doubtful voters, and later questions may be raised about their citizenship,” said a man whose 21-year-old brother from Uluberia in Howrah has been listed as under adjudication.

Protesters in BBD Bag on Monday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

More than 60.06 lakh voters were under adjudication when the post-SIR rolls were published on February 28. An official in the Bengal CEO’s office said about 7 lakh of these cases had been decided till Friday, but the outcomes are yet to be made public.

Sheikh Salahuddin, 39, who runs a construction material supply business, said he had travelled abroad on an Indian passport multiple times but was still categorised as a voter under adjudication. “I submitted my Indian passport when I was called for the SIR hearing. Yet I have been kept under adjudication,” he said at the sit-in.

Five other members of Salahuddin’s family have also been listed as under adjudication.

Ekramul Hoque Molla, 24, who also joined the sit-in, said his uncle — a carpenter whose name featured in the 2002 electoral roll — has been placed under adjudication now.

Police stopped members of the Mancha near the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry and did not allow them to proceed further.

Some members went to the CEO’s office to submit the memorandum, but the CEO was in New Town attending a meeting with senior state government officials and police officers along with the full bench of the Election Commission.

The memorandum cited cases of voters who had voted in earlier elections but were deleted from the latest rolls. It also questioned how voters who had submitted valid documents were still kept under adjudication.

Chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and election commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi are on a two-day visit to the city.

On Monday, they met district magistrates, superintendents of police, district election officers of north and south Calcutta, the city’s police commissioner and other senior officials at a hotel in New Town to review poll preparedness.