Kolkata: Bengal’s ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has sparked a political storm as thousands of voters claim their names are missing from the 2002 reference list.
In East Burdwan, more than 30 per cent of voters allege that their names are absent from the 2002 electoral rolls—the benchmark for the SIR process.
The Trinamool Congress has accused the Election Commission of deliberate, politically motivated exclusion. Many affected voters insist they hold voter IDs issued before 2002, yet without their names in the official reference list, they are unable to complete the SIR forms, leading to widespread anxiety and confusion.
Rakhal Samanta, aged 58 years from East Burdwan, stated: “I voted in 2002, but my name is still missing in the voter list of that year. The procedure is full of error and confusion.” In two booths under the Bakulia Gram Panchayat in Hooghly, residents report that nearly 1,500 names are missing from the 2002 voter list, despite the individuals being long-term residents with valid identity documents like Aadhaar and ration cards.
According to SIR rules, the presence of a person’s or their parent’s name in the 2002 list should suffice for re-enrolment—yet here, many parents’ names are missing under their proper address.
Panchayat Pradhan Ganesh Mandi said: “Even the booth numbers have been changed. It is nearly impossible now to find names in the 2002 voter rolls.”
The situation is even more distressing in Sanyalchar in Chakdaha, Nadia, where repeated river erosion and floods have wiped out six villages over the years.
With houses destroyed and documents lost, many residents cannot produce old voter IDs or proof of parental linkage. Lacking these crucial papers, they fear they will be excluded from the new electoral rolls altogether.
The humanitarian fallout of the SIR process is deepening further. The death toll linked to voter-list distress has now risen to 19, following another tragic incident in Binnaguri, Jalpaiguri, where a 60-year-old man died by suicide after discovering that his daughter’s name was missing from the rolls.