All six members of the family of Altamish Faraz Khan, a resident of Ward 61 of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) have been served notice for hearing under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Four of them were served notices on grounds that they had mapped themselves as sons/daughters of someone who is claimed by six others as father.
Mr. Khan and his brothers and sister appeared for the hearing as directed by their booth-level officer (BLO). “We realised that this was nothing but an arbitrary exercise, even though we had linked ourselves with our mother whose name was in the 2002 electoral roll,” Mr. Khan said.
Thousands of people have been served SIR notices because they have linked themselves with someone with “unusually high numbers of children”. West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Subhankar Sarkar, in an open letter to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, raised the issue of “unusually high numbers of children”.
‘Unusually high number of children’
Mr. Sarkar cited the Election Commission of India (EC) affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on January 18 to point out that the number of electors with six or more electors linked to them as children stood at 2,06,056. Whereas, the number of electors with 10 electors linked to them as children was only 8,682.
“It can be seen from the table above that the number of suspected electors identified on the basis of the number of children linked with the concerned electors varies sharply, depending on the threshold chosen by the ECI. Had the threshold of “unusually high numbers of children” been 10, the number of suspected electors issued hearing notices would have been 8,682 only,” the Congress leader wrote in the letter.
The Trinamool Congress too has raised the issue that electors have been given notices to appear before the EC for hearing on grounds that they have linked themselves to someone with “unusually high numbers of children”.
‘EC’s age-threshold arbitrary’
“We feel that the ECI has arbitrarily chosen age-thresholds to maximise the number of suspected electors on the basis of so-called “logical discrepancies” criteria based on age relationship mismatches, multiple claims of parentage, spelling inconsistencies etc,” Mr. Sarkar wrote in the letter.
He pointed out that that such an initiative of the EC had led to more than one crore electors, already included in the draft electoral roll, receiving hearing notices.
After the completion of the first phase of SIR, about 58 lakh names were deleted in West Bengal, bringing the number of electors in the State to 7.08 crore from 7.66 crore. There were violent protests over issuance of notices to electors under the category of “logical discrepancies”. About 1.36 crore such notices of logical discrepancies have been issued.
Referring to a January 19 order of the Supreme Court which introduced several modifications to ”logical discrepancies”, the Congress leader said that they had not been implemented to date.
The Congress leader demanded suspension of hearings on notices served on the basis of so-called “logical discrepancies” and sought an all-party meeting before proceeding further.
