In a shocking administrative blunder, a 45-year-old man from Kolkata discovered he had been officially declared deceased in the latest draft electoral roll. Lalu Rabi Das, a sweeper with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and a native of Bihar, found himself in this bizarre situation when checking the draft roll for the SIR constituency.
Alive and Well, But Officially Dead
Upon realizing the grave error, a stunned Das immediately approached his Booth Level Officer (BLO) this past Thursday, demanding an explanation. Das, who had filed his voter enrolment form alongside seven family members, was the sole member of his household whose name was missing from the list—with the roll effectively recording him as dead.
His BLO, Nilanjan Ghosh, expressed bewilderment at the mistake. "I could not understand how this error occurred," Ghosh stated. He confirmed that he had uploaded Das's form successfully via the dedicated BLO application and had the documents to prove it. Despite Ghosh's request for Das to submit a fresh application, the voter insisted the fault lay with the officer's handling of the process.
A Camp Flooded with Anxious Voters
Das's case is not an isolated incident. Similar confusion and anxiety have gripped several BLO camps established by the Election Commission across the city. At the camp set up in the Haji Mohammad Mohsin Square campus of Aliah University, 69-year-old Md Mahmood Alam was seen anxiously shuffling between the BLO room and the help desk.
Alam's name was omitted from the draft roll due to a part number discrepancy. "I wrote 220, the BLO took it as 218, and now I am running around at this age," he lamented. The camp's head BLO, Iqbal Hashim Ansari, along with about fifty other officers, has been working tirelessly since 10 AM daily, addressing concerns and distributing forms—primarily Form 6 for new enrolments and Form 8 for corrections.
Ansari categorized the majority of complaints into three groups: names deleted due to data mismatches, names absent because forms were never submitted, and applications from first-time voters. The camp has been operational since December 16, though the BLOs themselves were unsure of the final closing date.
Allegations of Intentional Deletion and Verification Drives
At the Vidya Niketan SIR camp, voter Tulul Shaw raised a more serious allegation, claiming her name was "intentionally" deleted. She explained that despite updating her residential address on her Aadhaar card from Sovabazar to Uttar Panchanan area, she was not provided with an enumeration form.
Alongside these problems, the camps are also managing verification processes for those who submitted Form 6 online. BLO Arpita Das mentioned that such individuals were being called in and given a specific form for confirmation. The camps also saw enthusiastic groups of first-time voters arriving to apply for their voter identity cards.
The series of errors in the draft electoral roll has exposed gaps in the voter list revision process, causing significant distress to citizens and putting immense pressure on the ground-level election machinery. With the election dates looming, the efficiency of these correction camps will be crucial in ensuring no legitimate voter is disenfranchised.
