Trains arrived one after another.
Droves got off the unreserved and general compartments. Platforms hummed with a restless energy. Dust kicked up from thousands of scuffing chappals.
Most of them had one bag slung across their shoulder and another in their hands. They moved toward the exit gates not as commuters, but as a silent army returning home, ready to ink their fingers and assert their existence.
The platforms of Santragachhi, Shalimar, Howrah and Sealdah stations are teeming with migrant workers coming to cast their votes in Bengal.
They work across India as masons, construction labourers, painters, tailors, or cooks because opportunities back home are limited. There were many women, too.
Migrant workers are known to be regular voters. These stations are usually crowded in the run-up to every election. However, this time, voting is not merely a duty.
It is an assertion of their identity as legitimate Indians. Hundreds of thousands of their comrades have lost their voting rights in a supposedly reformative exercise. This time, the spectre of SIR looms large over them.
Many of them said they would vote to defeat the forces that have disenfranchised their neighbours, friends and family members. Many of them also said they would not dare skip the vote this time, lest they be declared invalid.
Mohammed Rofikul Islam, 40, hails from Malda and works as a construction labourer in Chennai. He is on the rolls of the Harishchandrapur Assembly seat in Malda, but his mother’s name has been deleted.
“My mother is not alone. Several of my neighbours and friends, whom I have grown up with, are suddenly invalid voters. Why? What sort of government disowns its own citizens?” asked Rofikul, who was waiting to board a bus to Sealdah station, from where he would board another train to Malda. He arrived on the Coromandel Express, which reached Santragachhi around 10.55am on Wednesday.
Kamala Hasda, 56, a voter from Durgapur in West Burdwan, said her name was restored after multiple rounds of verification.
“I was called for a hearing because of a spelling mismatch in my father’s name. All six of my children were also asked to appear. We submitted all documents, and our names were finally restored. After coming this far, I cannot miss voting. I want to assert my Indian identity,” said Hasda, who came from Chennai on another train.
Around 11am, space came at a premium on Platform 3 of Dum Dum station when the Lalgola Express from Sealdah arrived. Headed to Murshidabad, the train was teeming with people, most of them migrant workers from other states, headed home.
A senior railway official said Sealdah and Howrah stations looked similar when trains to Malda and Murshidabad chugged in and out.
Some of Bengal’s poorest districts have been hit hardest by the controversial SIR exercise. Bengal has around 25 lakh registered migrant workers employed outside the state, though activist groups believe the number is higher.
Districts like Murshidabad, Malda, Cooch Behar and North Dinajpur send a bulk of this workforce. The rate of voters under adjudication is highest in these districts, which also have a high poverty rate.
Saibal Mamin, 46, an electrician in Visakhapatnam and a voter from Malda, said six out of seven family members, including himself, had found their names deleted.
But he said he would still visit the polling booth on Thursday.
“I have filed an online appeal. My last hope is that the tribunal restores my name,” he said.
Gulguli Sardar, 45, a Murshidabad voter who makes mosquito nets in Tamil Nadu, said the fear had driven many like her back home.
“My name is approved. But what if I still skip voting? I may be branded an illegal voter,” she said.
Bengali-speaking migrant workers were under attack, both by police and goons, in BJP-ruled states in recent months. They were branded as Bangladeshi infiltrators before being picked up for questioning or being attacked.
The atmosphere of polarisation has amplified the concerns of the migrant workers, especially those from the minority community, who fear that losing their voting rights may convert them into “second-class citizens”.
Asif Faruk, state general-secretary of the Migrant Labourer Unity Forum, alleged that migrant workers in BJP-ruled states were being stopped from coming home to vote.
“Around 75 men in Odisha had booked a bus to Murshidabad. On Tuesday, the bus was stopped near Sambalpur and taken to a nearby police outpost. The police said the bus was ferrying more
passengers than its capacity,” he said.
“After our intervention, the men were allowed to leave after they split into smaller groups,” he said.