Kolkata: The publication of West Bengal’s draft electoral rolls on Tuesday under the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) Special Intensive Revision (SIR) has undercut Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari’s repeated claim that the state hosts one crore Rohingya and Bangladeshi nationals.
According to ECI data, the categorisation of voters in the draft rolls shows that the number of so-called ‘fake’ voters is far lower than the figures cited by the BJP leader. Officials said the draft rolls provide no numerical basis for the claim of one crore illegal voters. The figure of 1.83 lakh ‘ghost’ voters represents cases flagged during the SIR process after field verification.
In addition, over 58 lakh pre-existing voters have been removed from the draft electoral rolls due to reasons including death, relocation, duplication, missing status and other grounds, officials said.
Adhikari has repeatedly alleged that illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants were present in large numbers in the state and had influenced electoral outcomes in the past. He had urged the ECI to take stringent action against such voters.
Despite the publication of the draft rolls, Adhikari continued to maintain that one crore Bangladeshi immigrants would be driven out of the state, a stance that, according to the ruling Trinamool Congress, created fear and panic among the public amid the SIR exercise.
TMC leaders accused Adhikari of spreading misinformation and politicising the issue. Party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh countered the claims by citing ECI data and questioned the basis of Adhikari’s assertion regarding the presence of one crore Bangladeshi immigrants in Bengal.
Earlier, the TMC had demanded a high-level probe, led by either a Supreme Court or a High Court judge, into how Bangladeshi nationals allegedly entered India illegally, pointing out that the Border Security Force mans the international borders.
The ruling party had also raised the question, “Who let them in?”, after Adhikari wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar accusing the TMC of shielding an “illicit vote-bank” it had allegedly nurtured over the years.
What Adhikari had been claiming was found to be baseless following the publication of the draft electoral rolls, the Trinamool asserted.