KOLKATA: Bengal’s special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls just produced an act of desperation with a strangely redemptive ending.Jagabandhu Mondal, missing for 28 years and long given up for dead by his family, returned to his native Bagdah village of North 24 Parganas Monday to reclaim his identity as a voter. His wife Supriya, left to fend for herself with two toddlers, recognised her husband’s “thickset face” the moment he landed at their door. His father Bijoy confirmed it was indeed his runaway son.“The voice, too, was unmistakably his,” said Supriya, caught in a whirlwind of emotions surrounding the man who vanished on a winter morning in Feb 1997.After efforts to trace him proved futile, the family had consulted an astrologer, who “confirmed” their worst fears. Supriya even performed her husband’s shraddha and reconciled to life as a single mother bringing up two kids.Jagabandhu’s name was apparently deleted from the electoral rolls during one of the subsequent revisions. Now 55, after nearly three decades without any contact with Bagdah, he wants in. “I decided to return after I lost my job in Chhattisgarh. My name is still on the voters’ list in Bankura,” Jagabandhu said. The Bankura connection triggered suspicion that he remarried. Next to his name on that list is one “Sulekha Mondal”. Her husband’s name? Jagabandhu Mondal. The man in the muddle denied marrying a second time. “I travelled to Gujarat and then Mumbai before returning to Bankura for a while. I finally settled in Chhattisgarh,” he said.Local booth committee member Samir Guha said Jagabandhu was back in Bagdah as he would need his original voter ID and land documents to remain on the voters’ list during SIR. “His name is not there on the post-SIR 2002 rolls, but his father’s name is.”The designated BLO, meanwhile, said, “With his name deleted from the rolls and no official proof of his whereabouts for 28 years, verifying his claims and restoring his status may prove a challenge.”
