New Delhi: West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress has reportedly accused the state’s principal Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of misleading voters, claiming the existence of over a crore of illegal electors. This followed the publication of data from the Election Commission’s draft electoral roll in its ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
However, Trinamool leaders themselves had equally contributed to building an environment of uncertainty and fear over SIR, which even resulted in deaths by suicide.
While Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari and Union Minister of State Shantanu Thakur did quote crore-and-more figures, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too had claimed the exercise would disenfranchise two crore voters of the state. She had associated SIR with the process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), adding that many would be put in detention camps following the process.
Meanwhile, the draft electoral rolls revealed around 1.8 lakh “fake” or “ghost” voters. The draft rolls are expected to be finalised soon, with hearings for affected voters beginning soon after the publication. The final voter list is expected to be published on February 14.
The EC draft also shows the removal of about 58 lakh names overall, which does not substantiate the political assertions of “one crore disenfranchised”. While political diatribes centred on whether there are “one crore Rohingyas/Bangladeshis” on rolls, the draft figures are an order of magnitude lower than those claimed.
Now political actors are using the draft roll to press their narratives. The BJP – including Adhikari – has said it will respond after the final rolls are out.
Like Bihar, political claims in West Bengal aggregated broader migration or demographic assertions. But the EC’s SIR process uses field verification, deletion categories – death, migration, duplication, non response – and legal thresholds to mark the entries.
Meanwhile, drafts are provisional, where many flagged names will be subject to hearings and could be restored or finally deleted, but only after due process.
In the draft roll, top concentration areas appear to reflect in the North 24 Parganas’ border belt, Matua dominated constituencies, and seats with a considerable number of Muslim voters. It was the last that Mamata’s critics had pointed to when the SIR exercise began in West Bengal. The border constituencies in North 24 Parganas show a disproportionate share of field flagged cases and the largest counts of entries marked as “ghost/fake” in the SIR draft.
Meanwhile, several Matua majority pockets record the highest deletion rates, with reported averages in the draft roll to be around nine per cent in those areas. A large number marked “unmapped” or deleted in the draft rolls are concentrated in these pockets, and the subsequent SIR process, with hearings, documentation burdens, and delays, is likely to cause short term anxiety.
The Matua are a large, politically influential Scheduled Caste community concentrated in North 24 Parganas, Nadia, and nearby districts of West Bengal. They trace origins to 19th-20th century reform movements and include many families who migrated from what is now Bangladesh during Partition and later periods, facing religious persecution. The community has been central to state politics because of its size, cohesion, and concentrated electoral presence.
The BJP’s state unit had approached the EC over Matua’s concerns and offered suggestions.
In a letter to the poll body late last month, the party pointed out, “The Matua community, along with other similarly situated Hindu migrants, has expressed growing dissatisfaction due to insufficient clarity on their documentation status.”
By contrast, many Muslim majority constituencies show much lower deletion rates on average, reportedly around 0.6 per cent in several such constituencies, which proved wrong Trinamool’s claims.
(IANS)
