Malda, Jan. 13: Election observer Devendra Singh?s day out at Habibpur on the Indo-Bangla border left him utterly confused over the identity of new applicants and those whose names had been deleted from the electoral rolls.

Accompanied by subdivisional officer (headquarters) Prasanna Mondol and Habibpur block development officer Bikash Saha, Singh went to a polling station in the Dhumpur gram panchayat area where a large crowd had assembled.

Going through the list of new voters and calling out their names, Singh did not get a single response. The residents, however, claimed that all the names were of local people. Among the list of new voters was the name of 55-year-old Matla Tudu, but nobody there could say why she had waited so long to get herself enrolled.

A bigger surprise awaited Singh at a booth in a primary school in the Akhtail gram panchayat area. Here too, no one responded to the roll call of new voters. The assembled people said they knew the names but could not give any details of where they lived or where they were.

When Singh inquired about the names deleted from the list, he once again met with the same set of answers ? all were local residents though district officials had told Singh that none had been able to produce documents proving their nationality.

Singh, however, declined to make any comment.