The New Indian Express News

Four relatives of TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar summoned for electoral roll hearings in Bengal

KOLKATA: Four members of veteran Trinamool Congress MP Dr Kakoli Ghosh Dastidars family have been asked to appear for hearings under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in West Bengal. The hearings under the SIR process kickstarted in the state on Saturday. According to sources in the Election Commission of India (ECI), the octogenarian mother, sister and two sons of Kakoli, an MP from the Barasat Lok Sabha constituency in North 24 Parganas district, have been called for hearings after their names figured in the no mapping list of voters. Notices for the hearings have already been served by the national poll body. All four family members are doctors by profession. Sources said they could not establish any linkage through their details in the enumeration forms during the last SIR exercise conducted in the state in 2002. Besides her mother, three other members will have to appear before the hearings. A Booth Level Officer (BLO) will visit Kakolis mother at her residence to verify the documents required for the SIR process, it is learnt. Kakolis mother and sister are voters in Barasat, while her two sons are registered as electors in Kolkata. The Commission has been calling people because it wants to delete anybody from the voters list at their whims. Just think about the plight of common people when members of a peoples representative face such harassment, Kakoli told reporters on Saturday. The hearings under the second phase of the SIR of the electoral rolls in the state commenced on Saturday, with 3,234 centres set up across West Bengal, a senior official said. Around 32 lakh unmapped voters, those unable to establish linkage with the 2002 electoral roll, will be called for hearings in the first phase, he said. Voters will be allowed to submit any of 12 recognised documents, including Aadhaar, as proof of identity and address, an official at the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said on Friday.