Father at 15: Draft voters roll data reveals oddities in West Bengal

KOlkata: thomas more than a bazillion voters in due west Bengal were max born when their parents were to a lesser extent than 15 years of age, data shared by the Election Commission has revealed.While at least 10,76,981 voters have been identified whose age difference with their parents is less than 15 years, there is another set of 3,11,811 voters who were born when their grandparents were less than 40 years of age.Neither is biological impossible -- but the numbers look off.A senior official of the poll panel who asked not to be named said that there are around 16.3 million voters who have “logical discrepancies” in their enumeration forms. They have been divided into seven categories : those who have been mapped with more than six persons in the progeny mapping; those whose age difference with their parents is less than 15 years; those at least 45 years of age but whose name was absent in the 2002 list; those who show a mismatch in their father’s names in the 2005 and 2002 lists; those whose age difference with grand parents is less than 40 years; voters whose age gap with parents is more than 50 years and voters whose sex doesn’t match with the 2002 list.The data shared by EC revealed that a large proportion of voters with logical discrepancies in enumeration forms are from border districts such as South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia.South 24 Parganas has 1,39,702 voters whose the age difference with parents is less than 15 years, followed by North 24 Parganas (92,951). Hooghly which is not a border district comes third with 66892 cases, followed by Nadia, another border district with 64114 cases.The highest number of cases, in which the age difference between voters and their grandparents is less than 40 years, is in North 24 Parganas (41099), followed by South 24 Parganas (40408).The EC official suggested that the panel is approaching these with an open mind“There could be multiple reasons including technical errors in the app, database errors or deliberate attempts. Booth Level Officers have been directed to visit the houses of such voters and re-verify the details. If the discrepancies persist even after the verification process, these voters would be called for a hearing by the Electoral Registration Officer after the publication of the draft roll.” The EC released the draft roll of West Bengal on Tuesday, more than a month after the Special Intensive Revision was rolled out in the state, with around 5.8 million names being dropped.“This is just the draft roll and the 5.8 million are just uncollectible forms. This doesn’t mean their names have been permanently deleted. TMC workers would be going from house to house to check to verify the records of these voters. The party won’t allow the deletion of a single genuine voter,” said Jay Prakash Majumdar, TMC state vice president and spokesperson.West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already held a meeting with her party’s Booth Level Agents in her constituency Bhowanipore in south Kolkata where more than 44,000 ASDD (absent, shifted, dead, duplicate) voters have been found..