KOLKATA: A minority-dominated municipal ward under the Chowringhee assembly constituency in the heart of Kolkata has lost around 50 percent of voters since the first phase of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls launched in West Bengal last November, posing a serious threat to the ruling Trinamool Congress vote bank ahead of the assembly elections in the state.
The number of voters in ward No. 44 under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has come down to around 12,500 from the pre-SIR figure of more than 25,000. Significantly, the ward had given a huge lead of around 7,500 votes for the Trinamool Congress during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Local Trinamool Congress councilor Rehana Khatoon said on Tuesday, “Names of about 50 per cent voters in my ward have been removed from the electoral rolls during, before and after the SIR exercise. Four members, including my son, two daughters and daughter-in-law have lost their eligibility as voters following the supplementary electoral rolls cleared by the judicial officers concerned.”
“How can it be possible? We have submitted all requisite documents, including passports to the Election Commission of India (ECI). They have appeared before the SIR hearing two times earlier. They have been rejected as voters as per the supplementary list. It’s a conspiracy of the commission at the behest of the BJP in Delhi to target some specific areas,” Khatoon said.
“Same thing has happened to many other poor families in my area, which traditionally votes for the Trinamool Congress. I have spoken to the affected people, who stay in slums of around 24 bighas of land at Giribabu Lane, and am planning to appeal before the appellate tribunals to retain democratic rights of all voters,” she said.
The names of 135 adjudicated voters residing at 28/1 Giribabu Lane under ward No.44 have been struck off. All of them are Muslims.
A Trinamool Congress insider feared that the huge deletions of such a large number of dead, duplicate and adjudicated voters in Chowringhee constituency under Kolkata North Lok Sabha seat, which is a traditional bastion for the party, might have a negative impact in the upcoming assembly elections.
Chowringhee has already recorded more than more than 70,000 absent, shifted, dead and duplicate (ASDD) electors as per the first draft of the electoral rolls.
Two former Chief Ministers Bidhan Chandra Roy and Siddhartha Shankar Roy had won from Chowringhee assembly constituency on Congress tickets before the CPI-M-led Left Front came to power in Bengal in 1977.
According to the national poll body, around 45 lakh cases out of 60 lakh voters marked as ‘under adjudication’ have been disposed of by judicial officers across the state.
The names of 38 lakh voters were in the supplementary lists released by the Commission since last week. The Commission has not yet released any figure in connection with the number of rejected voters so far among the 45 lakh cases.
National poll panel sources said that around 40 to 45 percent of the 38 lakh cases in the additional lists have lost their voting rights in the coming assembly polls after being rejected by judicial officers.
Therefore, around 14 lakh voters have been deleted from the electoral rolls during the adjudication process monitored by the Calcutta High Court, the sources said adding, “In all 78 lakh voters, including 64 lakhs ASDD electors removed from the draft electoral rolls, are expected to be deleted till Monday.”
The assembly elections in Bengal will be held in two phases on April 23 and 29.
The Trinamool Congress and the CPM have set up help desks to assist voters in filing appeals after their names were removed from the electoral rolls during the adjudication process.
Many voters said they were still unsure about what the appeals process would require. “There were 2,759 adjudicated voters in the Shyampukur assembly constituency on February 28, when the post-SIR roll was published. By the time the third supplementary list was released, 2,081 names had been deleted. This is a huge number, unexpected and shocking,” Shashi Panja, state industries, women and child development and social welfare minister and Trinamool’s candidate from Shyampukur, told media on Monday.