Former Calcutta High Court judge Sahidullah Munshi, now chairperson of the West Bengal Board of Auqaf, said on Thursday that his name had been removed from the state’s electoral roll following an adjudication process carried out during a special intensive revision, according to The Indian Express.
Munshi said his wife and elder son’s cases were still under adjudication, while his younger son had applied as a new voter.
“Till now, only my name has been deleted,” he said. “It is very humiliating and painful…a lot of harassment. The unfortunate part is that they took the documents and said they would upload them, but no receipt was given.”
He added that he was awaiting the official reason for the deletion before filing an appeal with an appellate tribunal.
Expressing surprise at the decision, Munshi said he had submitted all required documents. “I do not know how they have adjudicated and how they have deleted,” he said. “We were kept in the dark. Had we been informed that more documents were required, we could have submitted them. There was a list of documents, and any one should have been sufficient.”
Speaking separately to the Hindustan Times, he said he did not blame officials for the development. “I think that, as everything was done in such a hurry, they may not have looked into the documents thoroughly,” he said. “I submitted my passport so that it can’t be disputed.”
West Bengal is among 12 regions where the Election Commission of India undertook a special revision of electoral rolls. A final list published on February 28 showed over 6.1 million voters excluded.
The process has continued, with about 6 million cases marked “doubtful” or pending and placed under adjudication after objections were raised to exclusions in draft rolls issued in December.
On February 20, the Supreme Court of India directed that judicial officers of district judge rank be appointed to assist in completing the revision exercise, amid a dispute between the state government and the poll body.
A first supplementary list released earlier this week added names cleared by these judicial officers, with around 2.9 million of the pending cases adjudicated. However, the commission has not disclosed how many voters were ultimately added or removed.
Separately, the ruling Trinamool Congress alleged on Wednesday that a technical issue on the Election Commission’s website incorrectly showed all voters in the state as being under adjudication, causing concern among residents.
Reports also cited glitches when the supplementary list was uploaded, including server issues and difficulty downloading files. The Election Commission later said the problems had been resolved.