Bengal SIR throws up bizarre parentage entries, shows one voter with over 300 children

Kolkata: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in West Bengal has unearthed some baffling facts. One individual in Birbhum's Nanoor Assembly, for instance, has 389 children while in Howrah district's Sankrail, 310 voters share the same parent, SIR data seen by ET showed.

There are at least two cases where one parent has more than 300 children. Seven are listed as the parent to more than 100 children.

But the list of such baffling entries does not end there.


"In Nanur Assembly Constituency of Birbhum district..., at least 389 voters have been linked to a single individual as their father," a top official at the Election Commission (EC) told ET.

"There are 10 cases, where more than fifty children, and 7 cases where more than one hundred children have been linked to a single voter," said a poll panel source.

In Murshidabad, 199 voters have been linked to a single parent, which means one individual has been mapped to these many voters during the filing of the SIR Enumeration Form, sources said.

"In Darjeeling, 152 voters have been found, who are offspring of a single parent. In Jalpaiguri district's Nagrakata, 120 voters have been linked to one individual as their parent. In Asansol, 170 voters have been linked to one individual as their guardian or parent," said a poll official aware of the patently logical discrepancies.

"Furthermore, the records indicate that more than 2.06 lakh cases exist where a voter is shown to have more than six children. In 8,682 cases, more than ten children have been recorded," said an official cited above.

ECI Letter

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has written a letter Wednesday to Chief Secretary Nandini Chakraborty seeking compliance on several issues and sought her reply by February 9. This comes following a Supreme Court hearing on SIR.

These issues include filing of FIR against 2 EROS, 2 AEROs and one Data Entry Operator under section 32 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. This has long been due from August 2025 and the ECI has called this "violation of the Commission's directions issued to comply with the statutory provisions".

The second one is in connection with the suspension of Sumitra Pratim Pradhan, who is AERO and BDO, Basirhat-II. Pradhan had "unauthorizedly deployed 11 Additional AEROs to conduct hearings by issuing suo motu orders in contravention of the statutory provisions."