Md. Palash Shekh is in a fix. Rescued from a railway station and brought up in the government-run Subhayan Home for Boys in West Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur district, he had to leave the shelter once he turned 18. He has a voter ID card and an Aadhaar card proving his own identity, but has no way to provide any evidence of his parents, as required for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls currently underway in West Bengal and 11 other States and Union Territories.
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Unable to “map” either of his parents to the voters’ list of 2002, when the last SIR was carried out, Mr. Shekh falls into the “unmapped” category, and has now got a hearing notice from poll officials.
With no lineage to claim in the SIR, it is up to the State to provide him with the necessary documentation, he says, failing which he might be disenfranchised.
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