Paramilitary Brothers Receive Postal Ballots Despite Voter List Deletion in Murshidabad
In a perplexing development from Bhagwangola in Murshidabad district, two brothers serving in India's paramilitary forces have received postal ballots for voting, despite their names being officially deleted during the ongoing Summary Revision of the electoral roll. This incident has left their family members astonished and raised serious questions about the consistency of the Election Commission's voter verification procedures.
Brothers in Uniform Face Voter List Confusion
The two brothers, Kamal Sk and Saddam Hossain, serve with the Sashastra Seema Bal and Border Security Force respectively. Kamal is currently posted in Uttar Pradesh with the SSB, while Saddam is stationed with the BSF in Tripura. Both had formally approached the election tribunal just two weeks prior, seeking the inclusion of their names on the voter rolls after discovering they had been removed.
Their uncle, Tajrul Islam, revealed that during the Systematic Intensive Revision process, the names of two other siblings in the family were also deleted on grounds of "logical discrepancy." Remarkably, their father Abul Kalam's name remained on the list, while all four of his children—three sons and one daughter—were removed. "The Election Commission has followed no logic while deleting names," Islam stated. "My mother Nabia Bewa, who is 93 years old, was also deleted from the voter list."
Service Voter Category Creates Administrative Confusion
An Election Commission official provided a potential explanation for the contradictory situation, noting that for each assembly constituency, the voter list is maintained in two separate parts: one for general voters and another specifically for service voters. "Probably, their names were deleted from the general voter part but existed in the service voter part, which needed to be verified," the official suggested. "There has been no SIR or adjudication process conducted for service voters. We will seek a detailed report from the concerned District Election Officer. There could potentially be a technical glitch in the system."
The official further explained that the Election Commission maintains a separate record of service voters for every assembly seat. "It is possible that without properly verifying the deletion list, postal ballots were automatically dispatched to the units where these jawans are currently serving," the official acknowledged.
Booth Level Officer Cites Documentation Discrepancies
Wasim Akram, the Booth Level Officer responsible for the area, confirmed that the brothers' names were indeed deleted despite their submission of all required documentation. He pointed to specific inconsistencies in their grandmother's records as an example of the challenges faced during verification. "In the 2002 SIR list, their grandmother is mentioned simply as Nabia, but in the 2025 records, her name appears as Nabia Bewa. This discrepancy became grounds for her name's deletion," Akram explained.
Regarding the postal ballots, Akram expressed his own confusion: "I was informed by one of the jawans that he had received a postal ballot, but I have no knowledge of how he obtained it. In my assigned booth, there were originally 838 registered voters, and 407 of them were placed under the logical discrepancy category. It is genuinely difficult to explain precisely why so many names were ultimately deleted."
The two brothers themselves could not be reached for direct comment on this unusual situation that highlights potential flaws in the voter registration and verification mechanisms, particularly concerning citizens serving in uniformed services across the country.
