Bengal’s SIR hearing woes continue as voters line up at centres

Voters in West Bengal face confusion and long waits amid surname discrepancies during the Special Intensive Revision process.

Three months into the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in West Bengal, there are still long queues outside hearing centres as lakhs of electors wait to respond to what the Election Commission (EC) terms “logical discrepancies” in the electoral roll. 

With the draft electoral roll scheduled to be published on February 14, the hearings are required to conclude by February 7, as per the stipulated deadlines. Officials say this has added to the pressure at hearing centres, where hundreds of voters are being called each day. Both voters and election officials are racing against time, amid widespread confusion over surname variations, clerical errors and automated system-generated notices. 

Common Bengali surnames like Bandhopadhyay, Chattopadhyay and Gangopadhyay were anglicised over time to Banerjee, Chatterjee, and Ganguly. However, lakhs have received hearing notices for these. The issue was recently flagged by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Supreme Court. 

“My grandfather and father used the Chattopadhyay surname because places like Calcutta University and government schools in Bengal for the longest time did not recognise ‘Chatterjee’ as a surname. But we have always used it. Yet both my sister and I have gotten hearing notices,” said a voter from south Kolkata who did not want to be named. Lakhs like her are facing the same issue. 

Minor errors in names like Kumar shortened to Kr or Ray as Roy, Mallick as Mallik have caused immense harassment, as many are still running pillar to post to find documents to prove that these people are one and the same. 

“We do not wish to harass anyone. We also know that Kr and Kumar are the same and Chattopadhyay and Chatterjee are the same. But the hearing notices have been system-generated. Once someone gets a notice, they have to appear for the hearing,” a senior officer who has been involved in the hearing process told The Hindu.