The Election Commission had assured a peaceful poll. The EC did keep its word.
The Election Commission had assured that the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls would not exclude any eligible voter. The poll panel has miserably failed on this count.
It is 3pm on Wednesday. A small crowd has gathered at a quaint teashop run by 40-year-old CPM supporter Seema Dakua at Uttar Kailashpur in the Memari Assembly constituency. The people complain about frequent spells of power cuts that get announced by the rattling sound of the fan as it stops and starts.
As Seema prepares tea for customers, she breaks into a monologue.
“This is an unfair poll. The EC speaks a great deal about protecting the right to vote, but in our village, more than 100 people have been disenfranchised. It is a village where Matuas have settled over the years.”
Villagers engage in a ‘chai pe charcha’ at the tea stall of Seema Dakua at Uttar Kailashpur on Wednesday
Before Seema could end her monologue, an e-rickshaw stops outside the tea stall. The driver asks if there is anyone waiting to be ferried to the booth, which is around
4km away.
“Those who had to vote did it early. Only mastermoshai (teacher) is left, but he will go in the evening. The old man is enjoying a nap. With so many names deleted, there are not many left to vote,” fruit vendor Sudhangshu Bairagi, 48, tells the e-rickshaw driver, who drives away in search of passengers who are rare to come by on a
polling day.
It is April, but the day is unusually pleasant thanks to an overcast sky and a cool breeze.
“My forefathers came here from Faridpur in Bangladesh in the 1970s and lived near Memari town. When the CPM came to power in the late 70s, Jyoti Basu’s party identified Uttar Kailashpur as a settlement for Matuas. My grandfather bought land here and built the home where we still live,” says Sudhangshu, lamenting that the SIR had snatched the voting rights of 136 fellow villagers.
Around 600 metres from Seema’s shop is 47-year-old Amal Mondal’s home. A construction worker, Amal, lost his right hand in 1999 to an accident at the work site. He suffered another body blow this year — the EC struck his name off the electoral roll.
But why?
“No reason that I know of,” says Amal, whose family came from Khulna in Bangladesh, as he struggles to button his shirt with his left hand.
“After I lost my hand in 1999, I struggled to survive. I was not in a state of mind to check whether my name was on the poll rolls. I did not have my name on the 2002 rolls because of life’s circumstances. I am paying a price for an accident suffered 27 years ago. I got myself enrolled in 2007, but that hasn’t been considered,” he says with a sense of helplessness.
But Amal has a bigger query. If he failed to map himself to the 2002 voter list, what wrong did his 22-year-old son, Asish, do to get the name deleted?
Still rubbing his eyes, as his mother has untimely called him from his afternoon sleep, Asish joins his parents in the chat with this correspondent.
Nitish Mondal at Seema Dakua’s tea stall at Uttar Kailashpur on Wednesday
“His case is a perfect example of an illogical discrepancy committed by the EC. He has a valid birth certificate and a Madhyamik pass certificate. Both were among the documents listed by the EC to prove the eligibility of a voter. He had voted in 2024, yet his name has been deleted,” says Amal.
Asish, however, is miffed. The young man works at a jewellery shop in New Town.
“I blame chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress for what has happened to me. She should have seen through the SIR machinations of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Instead of street protests, she should have used the state’s administrative apparatus to ensure that the names of genuine voters like us were not deleted,” fumes Asish as he snatches his iPhone from his younger brother and leaves in
a huff.
Asish’s mother Shiuli, 41, the only one in the family to have the name on the electoral roll, steps forward.
“My son was born at Kalyani Simanta. He is angry with Didi, but all mischief has been done by Gyanesh Kumar (the chief election commissioner) at the behest of Modi and Shah,” Shiuli says.
But did she vote?
“I had thought of not voting in protest against what had happened to my husband and elder son, but I did exercise my right. I voted in protest against SIR,” she says.
Shiuli was mapped to her parents, who had their names on the 2002 list.
Back at the tea shop next to the Memari Government Polytechnic, Seema is preparing tea and the crowd is joined by local Trinamool Congress panchayat member Biswajit Dhali, 48.
“The SIR exercise has been arbitrary and malicious. I have my name on the voter list, but my brother Indrajit has not found a place. The BJP spoke about axing illegal entrants to the electoral rolls, but see who has been axed. Not the so-called Rohingya, but we Matuas. There are now 1,238 voters from our village after 126 Matuas have been axed. Even in neighbouring Kinna village, where mostly minorities live, 29 voters have been axed. Three of them are Matuas. In Kinna, there were 30 Matua voters, and now it is 27,” he says.
“This is a devious design of the BJP and the EC to send us to detention camps in the manner they have done in Assam,” Biswajit says as he echoes Trinamool’s
political line.
Sitting next to him, Pratap Bairagi, 44, nods in agreement.
“I, too, voted to protest against this disenfranchisement,” says Pratap, a Matua.
As everyone vents their anger and caution, Nitish Mondal, 55, sits quietly wearing a batik kurta. He looks tense all the while as villagers at the teashop discuss the disfranchisement of Matuas.
A day wage earner, he has come to the tea shop for a round of poll-day chat. At home, his wife, Kadambani Mondal, 48, struggles with illness. Originally from Khulna, his grandfather initially settled in Madhya Pradesh in 1971. Family conflict distanced the childless couple from their family, and in 2007, they had moved to Uttar Kailashpur.
A strong supporter of Mamata, Nitish speaks once. “Long before the BJP thought about the CAA, our Didi had provided us with a voter card after she came to power in 2011,” he says.
Then he returns to silence, but as I prepare to leave for Calcutta and board my car, Nitish leaves his seat and holds the door as I am about to slam it shut.
With folded hands and tears welling up in his eyes, Nitish says: “We are illiterate folks. We voted in all elections held after 2011. This time, we have been disenfranchised. I blame Gyanesh Kumar and the gods for it. Please do something. I can now look up to the judiciary for redress and the media to convey our plight to the authorities.”
Tears roll down his cheeks.
He lets loose the car’s door to wipe his tears. I console him and pressed with a reporter’s deadline, slam the door and ask the driver to move on.
Polls over, the EC must introspect about the sanctity of an SIR that has been mired in controversy, leaving lakhs out of the “festival of democracy” and devastating the lives of voters like Nitish.