An exercise billed as corrective has led to exclusions on a scale the country has never seen.
The special intensive revision of electoral rolls in poll-bound Bengal has removed close to 91 lakh names, or nearly 12% of the state’s electorate.
The process has shifted the burden of proof onto voters. In a democracy, the electorate chooses who governs them. Critics argue that, through the SIR, authorities are effectively choosing the electorate.
Md Zahoor Alam, the imam of Masjid Hemayatul Islam near Poddar Court, just a two-minute walk from Central Avenue, saw many deleted voters around him seeking his counsel after prayers on Tuesday. He advised them to be patient. But last week, Alam discovered that his own name — along with those of several family members — had been deleted from the rolls. They are voters of the Chowringhee Assembly constituency.
“All of us voted in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. Modiji became Prime Minister for another term on the basis of that election. If we are invalid voters, then Modiji’s victory is also invalid,” Alam said.
Md Nayeem Molla, a tailor in Metiabruz whose name was also removed from the rolls of the same seat, said he felt “deep humiliation”.
“Some political leaders say many things about Metiabruz. I dare them to visit here. Our patriotism needs no one’s certificate. Today, our Indianness is being questioned once again,” Molla said, pointing to a land deed in his grandfather’s name dating back around 70 years.
A Ballygunge resident removed from the rolls questioned the “tearing hurry” with which the SIR was conducted.
“As a citizen, I feel this is done deliberately, to target the people of Bengal. From the beginning, voters have no control over anything. Everything is being decided by the Election Commission, which has assumed that the voters are at fault. This is against the spirit of democracy. The SIR is supposed to be a routine bureaucratic exercise. The EC should ensure maximum participation in elections. But this commission is hell-bent on excluding people,” he said.
In south Calcutta, of the 78,657 voters marked “under adjudication” in the post-SIR rolls published on February 28, 28,468 — or 36% — found their names deleted after the EC uploaded its final supplementary list on Monday night. In north Calcutta, of 61,236 voters under adjudication, 39,164 — or a staggering 64% — were deleted.
Bengal last underwent an intensive revision of electoral rolls in 2002, two years before the 2004 Parliamentary elections. The current SIR was announced on October 27, 2025, six months ahead of Bengal’s two-phase voting on April 23 and 29.
Studies have shown a stark disproportionality between the Muslim share of the total electorate and the community’s share among the voters under scrutiny. Many non-Muslims have also been excluded.
Avishek and Sudeshna Pal, siblings from Chowringhee, have been removed from the rolls. The residents of Rajani Gupta Row were flagged for the same “logical discrepancy”. In the 2002 rolls, their father’s name was spelt as Madhu Pal. Madhu is his nickname.
“Our father later rectified it to Sanat Pal. But in the enumeration forms we were mapped to the 2002 rolls, which caused the discrepancy,” said Avishek.
Avishek works in a private bank. His sister, Sudeshna, is a swimming trainer at a school and was part of the Indian team that won bronze in water polo at the 2011 Asian Championships in Indonesia.