During the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists in West Bengal, a strange error has surfaced in the draft voter roll published on Wednesday. CPM state general secretary and former MP Mohammed Salim and his son, Atish Aziz, have been assigned the Brahmin surname “Awasthi” in the official records.
Atish Aziz shared the issue in a Facebook post, saying the Election Commission of India had “made me a Brahmin, and Mohammed Salim too.” He also posted a photograph of his voter details, where “Awasthi” is written in Bengali in the column meant for the last name. The document mentions Mohammed Salim as his father, and Salim’s own voter entry also carries the surname “Awasthi” in the same section.
Reacting to the mistake, Aziz said the error raises serious concerns about the voter revision process. “My father has been a politician for decades. If such an error can happen in his case, one can only imagine what might have happened to others,” he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
Mohammed Salim strongly criticised the Election Commission over the lapse. He said the mistake shows that an important exercise like the Special Intensive Revision was not taken seriously. “This error shows that a serious exercise like the SIR has been taken very lightly by the Election Commission,” Salim told The Telegraph. He added that there was a lack of preparation and proper training of officials carrying out the work, and accused the Chief Electoral Officer and the Chief Election Commissioner of turning the process into a “farcical exercise.”
Atish Aziz said he would contact the CPM’s Booth Level Agent to get the mistake corrected. Meanwhile, sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal downplayed the issue, saying such errors can occur in draft lists and will be corrected before the final voter roll is published in February.
The Election Commission released the draft voter list on Wednesday after completing the Special Intensive Revision in the poll-bound state. According to official data, around 58 lakh names have been deleted from the rolls, including 24 lakh voters marked as “dead,” 19 lakh listed as “permanently shifted,” and 12 lakh shown as “missing.”
