KOLKATA: Mina Jalal, 77, who never knew she was eligible to be a voter in her life, is on trial under the SIR. The elector of the Chowringhee parliamentary constituency died on March 27, days after the Electoral Commission included him in the final list for April 9. Although she qualified, neither her husband Jalaluddin Ahmed Siddique nor her son Imran Zaki made it through the adjudication process. Both appealed to the courts. Her three other sons and a daughter have been qualified as “voters” after submitting their registration forms. “She was sick and mentally stressed because she knew she couldn’t vote in the parliamentary polls, but when the electoral committee cleared her name, she ceased to exist – it was an irony of fate. She had participated in all the polls in the past and this time she was a bit distressed… because she was sick and BLO came and collected all the documents,” said Imran Zaki, a social entrepreneur and educationist. “All our names are in the 2002 SIR, but after sharing all the data and documents, we are still being harassed. They have not given any reason for removing our names. The EC should be transparent. They are playing hide and seek with malicious intentions.” Zaki added: “Our family has lived in Weston Street in Bobazar for more than seventy years, where our grandfather Nazir Ahmed worked for the British police, but we still live in the same building.” He said his father, an 81-year-old businessman and social worker, was “very worried” because he feared he would not be able to vote this time. “We belong to this country and are associated with this city since British times. How can they remove our names? It is a mockery of the democratic system. We hope we will be admitted soon,” he added.
