Kolkata: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday issued a notice for a hearing on claims and objections on the draft voters’ list in West Bengal to Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha member, Samirul Islam.
It is learnt that Islam had been served a notice for a hearing as a “logical discrepancy” case, because of the mismatches in his name and that of his father in the current voters’ list with that in 2002, the last time a revision exercise in the voters’ list was done in West Bengal.
He has been asked to be present for a hearing on January 19. Islam is a voter from the Hansan Assembly constituency in Birbhum district of West Bengal.
Samirul has confirmed the receipt of the notice for the hearing.
Islam is the second Trinamool Congress MP to be served with notice for a hearing.
Earlier, a similar notice was issued to the party’s three-time Lok Sabha member from Ghatal constituency in West Midnapore district and actor-turned-politician, Dipak Adhikari a.k.a. Dev.
He had also appeared for the hearing a couple of days before, and after coming out of the hearing centre, he issued an appeal to the ECI to be more sensible and sensitive as regards to serving hearing notices to voters, especially to senior citizens.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the ECI communicated to the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal that admit cards for the secondary examination conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Examination (WBBSE) will not be accepted as a valid identity document to be furnished by the voters who have been summoned for hearing be it as an “Unmapped” case or as a “logical discrepancy” case.
A CEO’s office insider explained that while the Madhyamik pass-out certificate is treated as one of the 13 documents specified by the Election Commission as a valid identity document, the admit cards for the same cannot be treated at par.
Recently, the CEO’s office sent a suggestion to the ECI’s headquarters in New Delhi on whether the Madhyamik admit card can be treated as a valid-identity document. However, on Thursday, the ECI made it clear that the admit card will not be treated as a valid identity document.
(IANS)
