4 months ago
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Sanjay Mahato, an elector from the Kolkata Port Assembly segment, has recovered his sanction deleted from the elector database during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) successful West Bengal. Mahato (42) who is simply a motortruck operator by profession, says helium was calved successful the country and had voted respective times successful erstwhile elections. The electoral rolls accidental helium has ‘permanently shifted’, a class on with 3 others by which names are removed from the rolls.
“Last period I was distant to marque a cargo delivery. I had to thrust from Jammu to Guwahati. The fog and acold intensified; it took maine longer than expected to bring the motortruck back. I was not present erstwhile the forms were fixed out. My woman didn’t capable her signifier either. Now some of america person been deleted,” helium says.
He has made respective visits to the District Electoral Officer (DEO) astatine the territory office astatine Gopalnagar successful Kolkata, helium adds. He was asked to capable signifier fig 6, a caller exertion to see a sanction successful the rolls. “With the SIR hearings going connected I americium not definite however to spell astir it,” Mahato says. The hearings are taking spot astatine 11 offices successful each of the 294 Assembly constituencies.
Mahato says helium was registered arsenic a elector astatine the Sambhu Vidyalaya polling booth, nether ward fig 90 of the Kolkata Port Assembly seat. Here, deletions during the archetypal signifier of SIR person been unusually high.
The names of 732 voters were struck disconnected successful the draught electoral roll. That is 10 times the mean of 73 deletions successful each polling booth crossed West Bengal. Before SIR, determination were 1,023 voters listed nether the Sambhu Vidyalaya booth; now, the fig is little than 300.
The Special Intensive Revision is the process of overhauling electoral rolls, present being conducted crossed 12 States and Union Territories successful India. This is 2nd round, aft Bihar’s database was revised successful mid-2025. SIR has been criticised by governmental leaders and civilian nine groups for procedural problems and for causing distress among voters who spot themselves arsenic being disenfranchised.
Besides West Bengal, different States that volition spot Assembly elections successful 2026 are Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Assam. In the 12 States and UTs, determination has been a 12-13% driblet successful voters connected the lists.
After the archetypal signifier of SIR successful West Bengal, from November 4 to December 14, 2025 the Election Commission of India (ECI) recovered astir 58 lakh absent, shifted, dead, and duplicate (ASDD) voters successful the State.
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Absent, shifted, dead, and duplicate
Among the astir 58 lakh deletions successful West Bengal, 24.18 lakh voters were marked dead, portion 12.01 lakh were recovered absent from their stated addresses. Around 19.93 lakh person been recovered registered arsenic voters successful aggregate places, and 1.37 lakh person been identified arsenic fictitious. After the archetypal signifier of SIR the elector database of the State dropped from 7.66 crore voters to 7.08 crore voters.
Mahato’s polling booth, Sambhu Vidyalaya, is located connected the Garden Reach Road successful Kolkata’s concern larboard area. It is an unassuming single-storey schoolhouse connected the immense spot of The Hooghly Mills, a jute mill established successful 1913. The jute mill and the compound are a shadiness of a once-prosperous economical enactment that was dispersed crossed some the banks of the stream Hooghly.
Hundreds of workers unrecorded successful shanties wrong a 1-kilometre radius of the school. Some are descendants of dormant oregon retired jute mill workers, and galore are first-generation migrants who moved present successful the past 3 decades, for work.
“There are astir 1,500 to 2,000 radical moving successful the jute mill currently, including some imperishable and impermanent workers. Some of them enactment here, but person families surviving successful a antithetic State. Some unrecorded and enactment present with their families, and immoderate person migrated elsewhere for good,” says Pappu Bharti, a booth-level cause (BLA) and teacher astatine Sambhu Vidyalaya.
BLAs are agents appointed by governmental parties to enactment the SIR process astatine the polling presumption level, wherever radical formed votes. Bharati explains that the crushed for the precocious fig of deletions is simply a precocious fig of migrants here. Most of those deleted from Sambhu Vidyalaya are successful the class of ‘permanently shifted’.
Among those whose names person been removed from the electoral rolls is Krishna Rai who has been moving astatine the jute mill for implicit 20 years. Although his household lives successful Chhapra successful Bihar’s Saran district, his recognition documents are each based successful West Bengal, Rai says.
“I person been casting my ballot present for decades now. When the BLO (Booth Level Officer, an ECI representative) had travel to administer forms, I had gone backmost to my colony to sojourn my family. When we spell home, we enactment for a fewer weeks to a month,” says Rai, who is disquieted astir filling retired Form 6 online, because, “I americium not literate.”
The electors of the jute mill loop whose names person been deleted bash not person immoderate onshore records oregon spot documents. There are galore second-generation jute mill workers similar Chandan Singh and Binod Rai . They accidental they person been called for SIR hearings, but interest that they bash not person documents to present. The BLA says that retired of the astir 290 voters that remain, 115 person been called for hearing.
Kolkata Port Assembly conception has unsocial witnessed deletions of astir 63,730 names aft the archetypal signifier of SIR, which concluded connected December 14. The constituency with astir 2.28 lakh voters saw astir 26% deletions. While the constituency has a Muslim-majority electorate, an investigation by Kolkata-based probe and advocacy radical Sabar Institute, points retired that successful the Kolkata Port Assembly seat, 13.27% deletions are radical with the surname ‘Singh’, which comprise the maximum, followed by ‘Khatoon’ astatine 8.41%.
Polling booths with abnormally precocious numbers of deletions are jute mill areas and places that spot migrant workers. High deletions were recorded astatine polling booths astatine Meghna Jute Mills and Alliance Jute Mill Canteen, some successful North 24 Parganas district, which besides spot a important colonisation of migrant workers from the adjoining States of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. At Meghna Jute Mills, 704 voters were deleted, portion astatine Alliance Jute Mill Canteen, 677 voters were deleted.
Political participation
The governmental rhetoric of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been demanding SIR, was centred astir amerciable Bangladeshi voters, invariably Muslim. However, Kolkata registered the highest percent of deletions successful the State, not the districts bordering Bangladesh.
The 11 Assembly constituencies of the metropolis accounted for 6.06 lakh deletions. Jorasanko Assembly Seat successful Kolkata North district, the birthplace of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, has accounted for the highest fig of deletions crossed the State, astatine 36.85%. The polling booth astatine Sri Jain Swetambar Terapanthi Vidyalaya, nether Ward 42, has registered deletions of 718 voters.
Councillor of Ward 42, Mahesh Kumar Sharma, a Trinamool Congress leader, remains unbothered by the deletions. Sitting successful his bureau down 1 the galore constrictive bylanes of Burrabazar, a engaged portion of northbound Kolkata with wholesale markets overflowing connected each side, the councillor says, “Most of the deleted voters were either migrants oregon ne'er existed. Anyway, they did not ballot for me. So their deletions volition not impact the party’s show successful the elections.”
The surname investigation of the deleted voters astatine Jorasanko recovered that ‘Das’, a communal Bengali surname, accounts for 15.91% deletions, the highest number. Non-Bengali surnames similar ‘Singh’ relationship for 11.88 % deletions, followed by Sharma astatine 6.33 %, and Gupta astatine 5.07 % deletions.
Now, it is the fearfulness of being called for SIR hearings that is keeping radical connected tenterhooks. After the archetypal signifier of SIR concluded successful the 2nd week of December 2025, the ECI identified astir 1.36 lakh voters with discrepancies. They are apt to beryllium called to proceeding centres.
The improvement enraged the Trinamool Congress enactment and Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee, who changeable disconnected her 3rd missive to the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar connected January 3.
Banerjee said that the summons was issued without radical being informed of the circumstantial reasons for specified hearings, thereby subjecting them to needless anxiousness and harassment. The CM, successful the letter, asked the CEC to rectify the glitches oregon halt the SIR.
West Bengal’s ruling enactment besides questioned the rationale of the ECI’s assignment of Central authorities officers arsenic micro-observers successful the State. Leader Abhishek Banerjee led a delegation to the ECI bureau successful Delhi to inquire wherefore this was done, erstwhile States specified arsenic Tamil Nadu had acold much deletions successful presumption of percentages.
The ECI, which often issues caller orders connected the SIR, has changed its rules for voters marked ‘unmapped’. The ‘unmapped’ are those who could not found their fathers’/grandfathers’ names successful the 2002 elector list. However, respective radical who could, and were inactive summoned for hearings, present bash not request to look for them. It besides said that aged and ailing voters request not be hearings successful person.
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It has been the 15 Matua-dominated Assembly constituencies of West Bengal, dispersed crossed North 24 Parganas and Nadia district, which person emerged arsenic a governmental flash-point.
The investigation of these constituencies by Sabar Institute recovered that an mean 33.95% deleted voters person been described arsenic ‘permanently shifted’. The mean fig of absent voters crossed these 15 constituencies stands astatine 21.56%.
The Matuas are a societal radical mostly composed of Hindu Namashudras, who person migrated from Bangladesh implicit the past respective decades. They person been apprehensive of the SIR since they deficiency bequest information (names of fathers/grandfathers successful the elector list). Matuas person been overwhelmingly voting for the BJP successful the past fewer elections and the Union government’s The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, was a measurement to assistance them citizenship.
The lone treatment that radical are having astatine nationalist places successful ward fig 11 of Gobardanga municipality successful North 24 Parganas is SIR and the summons for hearings. About 60 radical from the locality person been called up, arsenic they person been incapable to found connections with immoderate relatives successful the 2002 electoral roll. Those summoned for a proceeding accidental that they bash not person the documents to beryllium Indian citizenship.
Debdas Mondal (44), a nonmigratory of ward fig 11 of the municipality remembers that his parents and sibling came to the country successful the 80s. “We spent galore nights beneath a tree. I person onshore and a location deed from 1985, but I americium disquieted that whitethorn not beryllium enough,” helium says. His sanction has been deleted, on with household members’. He has been asked to amusement up for the hearing.
Lakhi Mondal Biswas (42), a comparative of Mondal, says that her hubby had a encephalon changeable and has go immobile. He struggles to speak, but has been called for a proceeding astatine a authorities assemblage astatine slightest 15 km distant from their home. Her full family’s sanction has not appeared successful the draught rolls, adjacent though her parents’ names were contiguous successful the 2002 list. “My parents voted successful 1975 arsenic well. We person each the documents. We person inactive been near out,” Biswas adds.
Mondal and Biswas are banking connected the assurance of BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, that nary Hindu exile volition beryllium removed from the elector list. While the Prime Minister could not be a nationalist gathering successful the Matua loop due to the fact that his chopper could not land, Shah said 10 days later, during a property league successful Kolkata connected December 30: “We (the BJP) pledge that each religiously persecuted refugees volition beryllium accommodated successful India. Even Mamata Banerjee cannot origin harm to the Matuas.”
Local BJP MP Santanu Thakur caused a disturbance erstwhile helium said that it was a bully woody for Matuas if “1 lakh of our ain radical (Matuas) are required to halt voting for a while, and if 50 lakh Rohingyas and Bangladeshi Muslims are removed from the elector list”.
Name calling
Meanwhile, names of nationalist figures specified arsenic fashionable Bengal histrion and Trinamool Congress MP Dev, cricketer Md. Shami, and writer Joy Goswami, were near out. On January 7, a BLO reached the residence of economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen successful Santiniketan and issued a announcement for hearing. The announcement to Professor Sen says that the property quality betwixt him and his parents is little than 15 years, and a proceeding volition beryllium held astatine his residence connected January 16.
Amid the outrage, the ECI came retired with different notification directing that overseas electors (Sen is one), and those temporarily distant from West Bengal, were exempt from in-person SIR hearings.
Under onslaught from the Trinamool Congress, West Bengal’s BJP enactment dragged retired the sanction of Dwijen Mukhopadhyay, the past colossus of Rabindra Sangeet, who died successful 2018. BJP leaders said helium would travel to formed his ballot astatine what utilized to beryllium his polling booth successful Salt Lake, courtesy the Trinamool Congress leadership, who would formed votes successful the names of each dormant idiosyncratic connected the elector list.
The BJP continues to importune that SIR is indispensable to region absent, shifted, duplicate, and dormant voters.
Edited by Sunalini Mathew
