About 4L names deleted in Matua areas of North 24-Pgns, Nadia; Citizenship fears spark political tension

Kolkata: Around four lakh voter names have reportedly been deleted in Matua-dominated areas of North 24-Parganas and Nadia, a move that experts believe could trigger a significant backlash in the upcoming Assembly elections.

Many voters from the Matua community in the Bongaon Lok Sabha Constituency of North 24-Parganas, who had supported BJP MP Santanu Thakur in 2024, met Trinamool Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP Mamatabala Thakur on Friday, expressing fears of losing their citizenship if their names were removed from the final electoral rolls.

Sources in the office of the District Electoral Officer (DEO) of North 24-Parganas district said that around 1,20,489 names have been removed in the final list in North 24-Parganas. The final voter count as of now stands at 73,88,059 in the district. The number may be changed later.

In Nadia district, which also shares a border with Bangladesh, approximately 2.73 lakh names were removed. The final voter count now stands at 41.45 lakh, down from 44.18 lakh when the SIR process began on November 4 last year. After the draft rolls were published on December 16, the number had already decreased to 42,02,261.

It was learnt that in Matua-dominated Ranaghat Dakshin, 7,125 names have been removed, while in Ranaghat Uttar, 6,400 names have been deleted. In Assembly seats like Ranaghat Uttar Paschim, Krishnanagar and Chakdah, where there is a large number of Matua population, saw a deletion of 6,700 names, 2,535 and 5,860 respectively.

In December last year, after the SIR process was started, the highest concentration of the “unmapped” voters was found in the Matua dominated Assembly constituencies of North 24-Parganas and Nadia, with BJP MLA Subrata Thakur’s Gaighata registering 14.51 per cent no mapping category voters.

Interestingly, the BJP brought the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), allegedly keeping these people in mind. In around 17 Assembly seats spread over Nadia and North 24-Parganas, particularly in the Matua-dominated areas, the “No Mapping” category of voters were as high as around 9.47 per cent.