While exclusion of names of 1.9 million people from NRC have continued to baffle many people in different parts of Assam, publication of an erroneous draft electoral roll has added to the woes of people in Assam’s Barpeta district.

The draft electoral roll published recently by the Assam government in Barpeta district of Assam have confused the locals due to some glaring errors in it leading to suspect some kinds of ‘conspiracy theory’ behind the errors in electoral roll.

Names of hundreds of citizens which appeared correctly in the electoral roll in the past were seen changed or being omitted–while names of some voters are either changed or omitted in, house number and address is changed in some other cases in the electoral roll.

“The revision of electoral roll is done to correct if there is any mistake. However, the recently released draft electoral roll has done the reverse. The names which appeared correctly in the past were now changed, in some places, the age of the voter or his address had been changed,” said activist Ashraful Hussain.

“We suspect that there is a conspiracy to harass the illiterate people in the district once again. There are mistakes in names, which will lead to greater problem in future,” he added.

Giving an example of one Badal Basak, Hussain said that the 2019 electoral roll mentioned name of Badal’s father as Lal Mohan Basak.

“However, the recently published draft electoral roll has mentioned the name of Badal’s father as ‘Mostafizur Rahman, adding to the confusion and woes of the poor people,” he said.

Badal is a voter of Bahari Reserve village under Chenga constituency in the district (Serial No 302).

“Similarly, the current draft electoral roll published the PAN card of voter Mahar Khan in place of his photograph. Khan’s photograph was, however, present in the 2019 electoral roll,” Hussain said.

“There are many such glaring examples. One such voter is Rabiul Haque. 50-year-old Rabiul has already proved through court that he is a genuine Indian citizen. However, the current draft electoral roll still mentioned his name as a ‘D’ voter,” he said.

“One would agree that the incorrect spelling of the names have caused many troubles in the past. Some people had to suffer in detention centres due to errors in names, which were done by government officials,” Hussain said.