KOLKATA: For 50-year-old Benji, the anguish of disenfranchisement has brought with it the heartbreak of being orphaned again. An orphan from Kerala, his home for the past 27 years has been his employer's family in Beleghata. But the Election Commission's diktat has severed his 'formal' link with octogenarian Padmarani Baral, who he considers his mother. During the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) drive, the EC refused to acknowledge his relationship with his foster guardian and he failed to provide any information about his biological parents, whom he lost in infancy. His name, therefore, was struck off the electoral roll.
Benji, christened Benjamin, lost his biological mother immediately after birth and his father soon after. He was subsequently moved to an orphanage in Kerala. He fled the facility one day and landed in a circus company. When he was 21, a man brought him to Kolkata to work as a shop help. But soon, the employer realised that caring for the youth was too huge a burden for him and requested Jayanta Baral, a fast-food stall owner in Beleghata, to take him in. Baral agreed, and in 1999, the orphan moved into his new employer's house, finally finding a family he could call his own.
Speaking with TOI, Jayanta said, "He was indifferent toward his rights. After several years of effort, I finally convinced him before the last election (2024 Lok Sabha polls) to apply for a voter card. He did and got a card. He also has a ration card." Benji cast his vote in the 2024 poll. After the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral roll started in Bengal, Benji filled out the enumeration form mentioning his employer's mother, Padmarani, as his guardian. He had done so while applying for the voter card, too. But this time, the EC refused to accept the relationship. He was called for a hearing but the matter remained unresolved.
"In my lonely life, I felt important for the first time during the 2024 election. But the SIR decision has again stripped me of my identity," Benji told this newspaper. "I would not have been so upset if I had never got the right to vote. But having experienced it once, it is painful to lose the right. It happened because I have no recollection of my biological parents. I consider this family (Barals) as my own and the person whose name I wrote in the form is now my mother. SIR may reject this relationship, but the bond is real." Benji is now searching for ways to reclaim his voting rights.
Thanks to his long association with Tutun's Fast-food Centre, a popular eatery in the central Kolkata neighbourhood, Benji is well known in the locality. Rajesh Kumar Shaw, who was having breakfast when TOI visited the stall, said, "Benji is the oldest employee here. People know him more than the owner. It is unfortunate that he was struck off the electoral roll because he could not provide the names of his biological parents."
