Too Old To Vote? 80-Year-Olds Scratched Off Voting List In Kolkata

Kolkata: They may be the exception rather than the rule but some octogenarian voters in Kolkata are deeply upset. Their names have been struck off the voters' list and they were not able to vote this time.  

They suspect - rightly, according to Election Commission sources - that they are possibly victims of what it has called a drive to "purify" electoral rolls.

But Mukul Chakraborty, born 1928 according to her voter card, is not willing to get "purified". Her friend and neighbour Sukhendu Bikash Chakraborty, three years younger than her, is cynical. Both did not get voter slips from political parties or the Election Commission. Whey they asked around, they were told their name was not on the voter list, just days before Kolkata polled.

Both want their right to vote back.  
 "I am very angry. I have been voting for so long and this has never happened before," says Mukul Chakraborty, waving her voting card in the air. She got it in 2009.

"When I was told my name is not on the list, I was shocked. I can't vote?" she said, her dismay clear in her voice. There is worse. "When I complained to the local political party workers, they just laughed and went away, saying, oh, you are so old, what's the point of voting," she said.

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"Yes, that's the word of mouth rumour here," said Sukhendu Chakraborty. "If you are 80 plus, you are deleted from the voters' list. How do I fight this alone? I don't have the energy or the age," he said.
 Besides Mukul and Shukhendu, at least three others in their 80s in their Naktala neighbourhood in south Kolkata met the same fate. But it wasn't a local problem. At Rash Behari, a 20 minute-drive away, an entire family of four fell off the rolls, including an 82-year-old national award making filmmaker.

Sources say the Election Commission launched the National Electoral Rolls Purification and Authentication Programme last March. Government school teachers, municipality workers and, in villages, block officials were asked to go from house to house and confirm voter IDs.

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No one is officially confirming it but sources say the focus was very senior citizens. Mukul Chakraborty's son finds the term "purification" used by Election Commision offensive. "The purification should be not of electoral lists but of people who do not duty with impunity," said Dipak Shankar Chakraborty. "People must be accountable," he said.