Listen to this article:

In West Bengal, the appellate tribunal that was supposed to act as a safeguard for wrongly excluded voters has instead come to symbolise the hollowness of the entire adjudication process following the Election Commission’s special intensive revision (SIR) of rolls. The single most shocking figure is this. Out of over 14 lakh people found ineligible to vote in the first phase, only 136 were reportedly cleared by the appellate tribunal ahead of the April 23 polling date. This means relief reached barely 0.01% of those affected.

That number alone is enough to expose the absurdity of the system, but what makes the situation even more alarming is the tribunal’s reported success rate. The tribunal examined 138 appeals and cleared 136 people to vote. In other words, nearly 98% of those who managed to reach the tribunal got relief.

This raises a devastating question. If almost everyone who reached the appellate stage was found deserving of restoration, then how reliable were the original decisions that declared people........

© The Wire