Controversy has emerged in West Bengal as an Assistant Electoral Registration Officer resigned from the Special Intensive Revision exercise, alleging the deletion of genuine voters’ names under the guise of “logical discrepancy” cases. These cases involve voters with unusual family tree data during progeny mapping.
Mausum Sarkar, the AERO for the Bagnan Assembly constituency, accused the categorization of logical discrepancies as a ploy to exclude marginalized populations from the voter list. Sarkar submitted his resignation to ERO Achintya Kumar Mandal, expressing concerns over the matter.
Sarkar, an officer in the Block Disaster Management Department of Bagnan Block No. II, highlighted that discrepancies in names and ages were corrected by citizens following Election Commission rules. He emphasized that the discrepancies are an attempt to disenfranchise specific groups, including marginalized communities.
The issue pertains to approximately 24,000 cases of logical discrepancies in Bagnan Block No. II, with a hearing scheduled for January 14. Sarkar requested relief from his AERO duties before the upcoming hearing to address these concerns.
Local reporters were informed by Mausum Babu that the logical discrepancies were an unjust tactic to invalidate votes of certain groups, especially those lacking specific documents. Despite this, the District Magistrate of Howrah, P. Deepap Priya, refrained from commenting on the situation.
