Jabbing the air with her fingers, a 32-year-old homemaker in a Murshidabad village spoke truth to power on Saturday, asking Bengal’s chief electoral officer why genuine voters had been deleted from the electoral rolls.
“Take steps to include the names deleted in the SIR; this is my request,” Taslima Biwi told CEO Manoj Agarwal, standing outside her home in Mahestala, Beldanga.
“When these people have at least two to three of the 16 listed documents (actually 14), why should their names not be on the rolls?”
Agarwal, in Murshidabad to review election preparedness, was visiting Mahestala, which witnessed violent protests on January 16 over the death of a migrant worker in Jharkhand.
Flanked by armed central force personnel and followed by a crowd, the CEO stopped outside Taslima’s home and asked her whether there was an atmosphere of fear or intimidation in the village.
Taslima, who seemed unfazed by the sight of the gun-toting jawans, did not bother to answer Agarwal. Instead, she put him in the dock.
“My request is simple: Make immediate efforts to include their names in the voters’ list. We will not be happy to see some people cry while others smile on polling day,” she said in Bengali, gesturing with her hands.
“We live together peacefully and will keep living that way. My request, therefore, is to immediately include all genuine voters in the electoral rolls,” she added without a break.
Visibly taken aback by her assertiveness, Agarwal mumbled that he agreed with her. He then resorted to the standard bureaucratic waffle that poll panel officials have been using to stonewall questions about the large-scale deletions.
“On the direction of the Supreme Court, judicial officers had handled the under-adjudication cases. The deletions of names have been done by the judicial officers. Let me see what I can do,” he said before urging villagers to vote without fear.
Taslima spoke again, this time with folded hands: “There is no fear here. But do ensure that some voters are not left to cry while others smile their way to the polling station. All genuine voters should find a place on the voters’ list.”
Booth 158 of the Beldanga Assembly constituency, where Taslima votes, had 600 voters before the SIR began. When the rolls were frozen on Friday, it had 505 names. The adjudication process itself had deleted 63 names.
Muslim-majority Murshidabad has witnessed the highest number of deletions among Bengal’s districts. Of its 11,01,145 voters marked “under adjudication”, some 4,55,137 have been found ineligible.
Before the SIR, Murshidabad had 57,64,085 voters; the number eligible to vote on April 23 is 50,26,213.
Taslima’s neighbours Nargis Biwi and Raju Sheikh lost their voting rights during the adjudication process.
“We submitted three to four documents that the commission had asked for. Still, our names have been deleted,” Raju said. “Now, we have to run to the tribunal to submit the same documents again.”
While the appellate tribunals are in operation, the freeze on the rolls means they cannot vote in this election unless the Supreme Court intervenes.
The poll panel seemed to underline this on Saturday, saying 3,60,77,171 voters would be able to vote in the first phase, which covers 152 seats.