Bengal SIR: ECI explains logic behind not accepting domicile certificates as identity documents

Kolkata, Jan 8 Explaining the logic behind not accepting domicile certificates issued by the West Bengal government as identity documents, the Election Commission of India (ECI) said papers issued for specific purposes cannot be used for establishing voting rights.

Sources in the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, said that one of the purposes of the domicile certificates is to give an additional residency proof in a state for those citizens of the state who are serving in the armed forces or the central forces in the state, considering the frequently transferable nature of jobs throughout the country.

Similarly, a current citizen of any other state, whose parents have been residing in West Bengal for 15 years or more, can also apply for the domicile certificate from the West Bengal government.

However, the state government in such a case grants a certificate only after ensuring certain criteria. The first criterion is whether the parents concerned are holding any land or house, or any other landed property in West Bengal or not. The second criterion is whether the applicant for the domicile certificate was born in West Bengal or not.

At the same time, the state police also conduct a detailed verification of the current residence of the applicant in the other state.

"Only after fulfilling all such criteria, the applicant concerned is granted the domicile certificate. So the ambit of the purpose of the domicile certificate does not include its acceptability as an identity document required for establishing voting rights in the SIR exercise," the sources in the CEO's office clarified.

Already, a political slugfest has surfaced in West Bengal over the acceptability of domicile certificates as identity proof in the SIR exercise.

Notably, Trinamool Congress president and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Commission of deliberately refusing to accept domicile certificates as identity proofs with the intention of deleting genuine names from the voters' list.

However, the opposition party in the state claimed that the domicile certificates issued by the Mamata government should not be accepted as the identity proof in the revision exercise since such certificates were issued "rampantly and illegally" to accommodate illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators in the voters' list.

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