From ‘inter-religion father-son’ to ‘pre-registered DoB’, EC rings alarm bells on Bengal SIR data

Kolkata: From inter-religion father-son relationship to pre-registered date of birth, the Election Commission has flagged off what seems like gross anomalies in SIR documentation of voters in West Bengal that came to light during the ongoing "super check" scrutiny, following the completion of hearing and document uploading phase of the exercise.

The unusual data posted by voters, which were cleared and uploaded by poll officers of the state during the verification process of voters who were summoned for hearings on grounds of logical discrepancies or for remaining unmapped during the enumeration phase, have raised red flags in the Commission's top brass, officials said.

In the Panskura Paschim assembly constituency in Purba Medinipur district, SIR observers allegedly unearthed an uploaded enumeration form (EF) of an elector named Sheikh Rajesh Ali whose father's name has been enrolled as Bhuban Chandra Bera.

Tracing back the corresponding EFs, officials found that Bhuban Chandra Bera has been listed as father to another voter, Bijoy Krishna Bera. The error, officials said, was an oversight of the ERO concerned and would have stayed that way in the final rolls, had it not been identified during the super check.

In Magrahat in South 24 Parganas district, an elector submitted his birth certificate issued by the local public health centre under the state health department which certifies his date of birth as October 30, 1990.

Shockingly, the date of registration of birth of the voter has been mentioned as August 23, 1990, preceding the actual date of birth, as mentioned in the certificate, by 68 days.

"It will be difficult for us to ascertain whether it was a clerical error on part of the certificate issuing authority or filed with malafide intention by the elector. Nevertheless, the document should not have been accepted by the poll officer concerned in the first place, let alone uploaded it," an EC official said.

Last week, the EC flagged gross anomalies from a voter's data in the Metiabruz area in the south-western fringes of Kolkata where data provided by electors showed that the age gap of a couple's third and fourth children was less than one month.

The documents, shared by 10 members of the same family listed Sk Abdul Hai (spelled alternatively as Abdul Hai, Abdul Hai Sheikh and Abdus Hai in separate forms) as father and Manowara Bibi as the mother of 10 children.

While the date of birth of the third child, Sk Irshad, was listed as December 5, 1990, that of the fourth child, Sheikh Nowsed, was mentioned to be January 1, 1991.

In yet another case, the EC flagged a birth certificate submitted during hearing by an elector from the Baranagar area of North 24 Parganas district which listed his date of birth as March 6, 1993 but was issued two days prior to that, on March 4, 1993.

In December last year, the commission initially placed over 2,200 polling station areas under intense scrutiny after enumeration forms returned from these booths showed no dead, duplicate or untraceable voters during the enumeration phase, a statistical oddity that rang alarm bells in the commission.

That figure was later subsequently reduced following cross checks by poll officials.

On February 16, using powers under the electoral law, the Election Commission has suspended seven officials of the state, deployed as assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs), with immediate effect for "serious misconduct, dereliction of duty and misuse of statutory powers in connection with the ongoing SIR exercise.

Acting on the commission's ultimatum, the West Bengal government on Tuesday registered FIRs against five state employees, including two EROs and two AEROs, for alleged "grave lapses" and violations of data security policies over electoral roll revisions.

The alleged anomalies have surfaced amid an intensifying political dust-up raked up by the Trinamool Congress over the SIR exercise which is nearing conclusion, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leading the attack salvo on the EC by calling it a "Tughlaqui commission", and accusing it of acting at the behest of the BJP to manipulate the voters' lists in the state.

The commission had initially issued hearing notices for about 32 lakh unmapped voters with 2002 electoral roll and another about 1.25 crore voters for logical discrepancies on account of suspicious self and progeny mapping in enumeration forms. The cases falling under the latter category were subsequently reduced to about 95 lakh.

Following extensions in deadlines of various phases of SIR in the state granted by the Supreme Court, the EC is scheduled to publish the final electoral rolls for Bengal on February 28.