Kolkata:As the second phase of the SIR gathers pace in West Bengal, block offices are turning into sites of anxiety, with elderly, disabled and vulnerable voters enduring physical distress, long journeys and loss of livelihood to prove they are “legitimate” electors, sharpening political fault lines ahead of the assembly polls.

Across rural and urban Bengal, scenes at hearing centres have transformed what was intended as a technical exercise into a deeply emotive public issue.

Octogenarians arriving on stretchers or leaning on relatives, persons with disabilities crawling across office floors, and daily wage earners forfeiting income out of fear that their names may be struck off the electoral rolls have exposed a widening gap between administrative intent and ground reality.

From an 87-year-old woman ferried 32 km for a hearing, to a man with 80 per cent disability forced to crawl inside a block office, to an eight-month pregnant woman summoned despite exemptions, the hearings have thrown up images that critics say belie claims of a routine clean-up of voter lists.

Source:Ndtv