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The Big Bengal Exclusion: 34 lakh appeals, only 139 are cleared to vote today
Getting off the ground only days to go before polls, tribunals come out with supplementary list for first phase as ordered by SC
The list can be accessed on the Commission’s website by selecting the add or delete list and entering the Assembly and booth number. Booths with pending cases will not display names (File Photo)
Thirty-four lakh applications regarding the voting list pending before them, the 19 tribunals in West Bengal have managed to clear a total of 139 names for inclusion, ahead of polling for the first phase in the state on Thursday.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) published the lists with these names after the Supreme Court ordered the tribunals to consider the applications till two days before the polling dates of April 23 and 29, respectively, and release supplementary lists.
While announcing the release of the supplementary list for the April 23 phase on Wednesday morning, the ECI did not give out the complete list of names, or how many applications the tribunals were considering. Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agrawal, however, told The Indian Express that the list comprised 139 names. Sources said these were cleared by the tribunals after considering around 650 cases.
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Apart from the 139, at least some more names among the 650-odd cases will be able to vote as they had been cleared in a previous supplementary list but had applied to the tribunals due to some “concerns”, sources said.
Announced after the adjudication process marked out 27.10 lakh names for deletion due to “logical discrepancies”, the tribunals took a long time getting off the ground – despite the narrow window ahead of the polls – with confusion over their operations continuing to persist. The ECI said earlier that the tribunals were hearing 34 lakh applications, including those seeking exclusion of names in the voting list.
With the ECI not sharing a comprehensive list, voters need to access its website, and go through separate addition and deletion lists as per their Assembly and booth number. Voters who don’t figure in either of the two lists in their Assembly seat or booth can use their voter ID number to search.
Another supplementary list will be released by tribunals ahead of the April 29 voting.
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The Supreme Court had invoked its special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to direct that voters declared eligible by tribunals up to two days before polling be allowed to vote in the Bengal Assembly elections.
The Indian Express earlier went through at least two dozen appeals filed by applicants through their lawyers before tribunals. The grounds in these appeals included not receiving a notice or not getting a hearing before being struck off the rolls; apprehension that the documents submitted by them were not taken into account by the judicial officers adjudicating on their eligibility; and being served notices for “logical discrepancies” that did not apply to them.
Tarique Quasimuddin, an advocate at the Calcutta High Court whose chambers have helped around 300 deleted electors file appeals, said many of the appellants had passports. “What we have experienced is that in some cases, Booth Level Officers did not advise the electors properly. They told them only one document was enough. This did not give them an opportunity to establish their claim,” he said.
Imran Zaki, a Kolkata-based businessman and educationist, has said the same in his appeal. He said that as advised by his Booth Level Officer, he submitted his passport as proof, but his name was sent for adjudication without notice and then deleted. He suspected his documents were not placed before the judicial officer concerned.
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“In the past I have flown from Europe to be able to vote, but this time I won’t be able to,” Zaki wrote in his appeal.
Durri Bhalla, a cookbook author, also wrote in her appeal that her documents were not placed before the judicial officer. She said she was called, along with her husband and daughter, to submit additional documents during a hearing, and that while she brought along all, including passport, the officials said they only needed one. Her name was later struck off the rolls, even as her husband’s and daughter’s were not.
Kolkata resident Rafiqa Khatoon, 83, said she submitted a copy of her passport. Her appeal said she got a notice for a mismatch with her father’s name, though her own name was in the 2002 roll. “My father died in 1973, so the question of mismatch can’t arise,” she wrote.
One of the deleted electors, who moved to Kolkata from Jharkhand two decades ago, received a notice for mismatch in her father’s name. Apart from one document where her father’s name is written as “Md”, it is Mohammad in all. In her appeal, she argued that “Md” is a prefix and that there was no mismatch.
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In the first phase Thursday, 152 Assembly constituencies will vote in Bengal, while 142 will go to polls on April 29. The results will be declared on May 4.
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