Bengal SIR: Portal for voter appeals live, but no word on offline route

The Election Commission portal for appeals from Bengal voters against exclusion from supplementary lists went live on Sunday, but there was no clarity on how to apply offline – a gap officials admit could disenfranchise large numbers unable to go online, report Poulami Roy Banerjee and Kaushik Pradhan.Nineteen judicial tribunals have been set up to hear appeals. Each supplementary list carries a note saying appeals must be filed in a fortnight, but EC is yet to clarify from which date. An EC notification says appeals can be filed offline at DM, SDM or SDO offices, which will upload them “at the earliest”.BLOs deluged by queries and requests for helpThe EC notification doesn’t mention a timeline or explain procedural details. There is no information on which offices will handle offline appeals.

Rojina Khatun, of East Burdwan, is among the lakhs worried about whether she stands a chance of getting into the rolls. “I don’t know anything about technology to file an appeal online by myself. And we are yet to know when the offline mode will be activated. I am in touch with our BLO, who has asked me to keep all documents ready,” she said.Md Nazrul Islam, of Murshidabad, visited the DM’s office to enquire about what he should do.

Md Jomadar Sheikh, of Dhulian, said a judicial tribunal was his only hope. Jahima Khatun’s name was deleted because her father’s name was misspelt in one document.BLOs are deluged by queries and requests for help. “I received multiple calls from voters who wanted to know how to file an appeal,” said Bappaditya Guha, a BLO in Jorasanko. “The names of 46 people in the ‘part’ assigned to me have been deleted. I followed all instructions from EC and uploaded voters’ documents on the BLO app. We are answerable to the voters; they trusted us and gave us their documents.”EC released a fourth supplementary list Sunday with around two lakh names from among the close to 60 lakh that were under judicial adjudication. Of the 40 lakh cases disposed of by judicial officers, around 18 lakh have been rejected.