Kolkata, Feb. 12 -- The ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) hearings of electoral rolls in West Bengal have thrown up a series of startling and, at times, baffling claims, prompting the Election Commission to order legal action in multiple cases and underlining the enormity of the task involved in cleaning up the voters' list.
One of the most striking cases emerged from the Baranagar Assembly constituency, where scrutiny of documents revealed that a voter's recorded date of birth was March 6, 1993, while the birth certificate submitted in support of the claim had been issued two days earlier, on March 4, 1993.
The apparent impossibility of a birth certificate being issued before birth left senior election officials astonished.
After...