Ace pacer Mohammed Shami, Noble laureate Amartya Sen, served SIR notice!!
- Jan 18
- 4 min read
"If a Bharat Ratna recipient has to prove his citizenship, and that too because of a dubious and secretive software that enjoys no legal standing, then what would it be like for an ordinary citizen, say a poor woman…?"
By Shahnawaz Akhtar in Kolkata
Should there be any doubts about the citizenship or voter status of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, India fast bowler Mohammed Shami, actor and Trinamool Congress MP Dev Adhikari, former Kolkata Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee and his son Ranajit, acclaimed actor Anirban Bhattacharya, veteran poet Joy Goswami, actor-couple Laboni Sarkar and Kaushik Bandyopadhyay, and former Left Front minister Kanti Ganguly?
Well, the Election Commission has its misgivings. All these well-known and respected citizens have received notices under West Bengal’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
They are among lakhs of voters in Bengal—including senior citizens, migrant workers and ordinary residents—who have been summoned by election officials over alleged discrepancies in voter records, raising serious questions about the legality, intent and scale of the exercise.
Ranajit Mukherjee, member of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and son of former Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee, said the notices exposed the arbitrary nature of the process.
“The most famous Bengali, Amartya Sen, has received an SIR notice over discrepancies in his mother’s age. But it can be easily corrected, so there was no need to serve notice. In my case, I was a candidate for the Lok Sabha in 2019, and scrutiny was done by the Election Commission itself. They can easily go through my Aadhar details and get all the information they need, but they did not,” Ranajit told eNewsroom.
The father-son duo is scheduled to appear for the SIR hearings on January 14 and 15, 2026.
“We will appear, but the entire exercise is needless, and funds from the public exchequer are being spent on it,” he pointed out.
Raising a pointed political question, he added: “Interestingly, political leaders from almost all the parties got notices in Bengal, except the BJP. Whether it is technical (read AI) or human error, how did it not impact the BJP?”
The Congress has dubbed the SIR a “political exercise.
SIR: No legal basis under Election laws
Former IAS officer and ex-Chief Election Officer (CEO) of West Bengal, Jawhar Sircar, raised fundamental objections to the process. “As I have insisted, there is no legal sanctity for ‘Special’ Intensive Revision as the law (Registration of Electors Rules 1960) authorises only ‘Intensive Revision’,” Sircar told eNewsroom.
Explaining further, he said: “So many of the instructions being issued by ECI under SIR are beyond its remit and highly questionable. Rule 8 of the 1960 Rules states that for ‘Information to be supplied by occupants of dwelling-houses, the registration officer may, for the purpose of preparing the roll, send letters of request in Form 4…’”
“No citizen has been issued Form 4, and instead they have been compelled to fill in an Enumeration Form, which finds no mention in the Rules. Based on the ECI’s data and discrepancies thereof, citizens are being summoned like offenders before AEROs, just because the ECI so desires. Dr Amartya Sen is one such victim of ECI’s arbitrariness.”
Social activist Yogendra Yadav, who has opposed SIR from its inception, said the notice to Amartya Sen exposed the deeper danger of the exercise. “In a way, I am glad that the SIR notice was served to Amartya Sen, because it highlights the plight of an ordinary citizen. If a Bharat Ratna recipient has to prove his citizenship, and that too because of a dubious and secretive software that enjoys no legal standing, then we can understand what it would be like for an ordinary citizen, say a poor woman… the kind of people Prof Sen has spoken up for.”
Crores Dropped from Draft Rolls
More than 90 lakh voters in Bengal are yet to receive—or are expected to receive—hearing notices before the final roll is published in February. Across 12 Indian states, over 7.5 crore voters out of an estimated 53 crore have been removed from the draft electoral rolls during the ongoing SIR. While some names may return to the final lists, critics warn that the scale of deletions signals a serious threat to voting rights.
“The Election Commission should clarify the reason why such a large number of voters have been removed. It needs to cite the reasons. In the world’s largest democracy, voters are losing their rights, without ECI giving any specific reason. It is outrageous,” said a Kolkata-based researcher.
Questioning the stated objective of SIR, Ranajit Mukherjee noted, “My father and I will attend the hearings. We have no fear or tension. But the larger question is about common people. It is a political exercise; billions are being spent, yet, few infiltrators are found. There is widespread harassment of legitimate voters.”
Shahnawaz Akhtar is the Managing Editor of enewsroom.in, an independent Kolkata-based media platform.
Courtesy: enewsroom.in