Assam: Army veteran denied voting, declared dead by election officers
86-year-old ex-serviceman Niresh Ranjan Bhattacharjee
Silchar: An 86-year-old ex-serviceman from Assam was not allowed to vote in this year’s Lok Sabha polls as the election department deleted his name because he died as per their records, officials said.
Niresh Ranjan Bhattacharjee, a former Indian Army officer, who was part of two wars against Pakistan, said that he received a slip from the election department officials where his name was in the “deleted list” with an “E” mark.
The ex-serviceman is a voter from the Silchar district that went to the polls on April 26 in the second phase.
“The election officials came to my house with voters’ slips on April 24 and there was an E-mark by my name which means, my name was deleted because I expired (died), but I am alive. I preferred to receive it myself and on April 26 I went to cast my vote too, where I was denied,” Bhattacharjee said.
He said that when the officials did not allow him to vote, he asked them to give him a written statement, which he received.
“They felt uneasy because of my presence, they told me that the E-mark by my name means I am dead but I was alive standing in front of them, that made the situation a little awkward for them,” Bhattacharjee said.
Bhattacharjee joined the army in 1955 and took a voluntary retirement after the 1965 war Indo-Pakistan war. He worked as a teacher for a few months that year and later joined the Principal Accountant General (Audit) office in Shillong, Meghalaya.
“We were allowed to take retirement from the army on the condition that we’ll return to the force if any emergency arises. In 1971, we were called back and I was posted in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
Bhattacharjee’s family stayed in Shillong until he retired from the army and moved to Silchar in 1995. His elder son Nirmal Kumar Bhattacharjee, an engineer turned entrepreneur, said that their names were shifted to Silchar in the same year and in the 1996 general elections, all the eligible family members voted here.
“We voted in the same centre since 1996. For the first time since that, my father was denied exercising his voting rights and that gave him pain,” Nirmal said.
The Cachar election officials accepted that it was a mistake from their side and they assured to rectify it as soon as the election process ends.
Cachar district commissioner Rohan Kumar Jha, who is also the returning officer of the constituency, said they had prepared the initial list of electorates on February 8, which was later updated.
“After preparing the first draft, we deleted the names of those citizens who died. We will have to see what happened in this case. I will enquire,” Jha assured.
The former serviceman, showing disappointment over the incident said, “We saw this nation grow but at this age, I am disappointed to see such inefficient acts.”
He, however, said that he understands the pressure that the election department officials are facing because of the large amount of voters.
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