Pobitro Ohiyaar finished another day’s work at a brick kiln in Harirampur, a small village in Bengal’s South Dinajpur district around 389 km north of Kolkata, and returned home with a question he cannot shake off: When did he die?
Ohiyaar, 31, said he was born here, raised here, and, by his own count, has voted in seven or eight elections. His parents had voted after 2002, the cut-off mark set by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the special intensive revision (SIR) for Bengal, he insisted.
For years, his own name was on the list, too, until it wasn’t. In the draft voter list, he has been designated as “dead”.
“I voted in 2024. I voted in the panchayat elections,” Ohiyaar said. “Then suddenly, my name is gone.”
Tarun Kumar Kabiraj, the booth-level officer (BLO) of Ohiyaar’s polling booth, Maliyan Dighi FP School, Harirampur constituency, told The Telegraph Online: “I don’t know how his name ended up in the dead category. I had filled his form and submitted everything properly. His family’s names are in the roll, but his name is not.”
Few like Ohiyaar understand and fewer still know how to navigate such a situation. Acting on instructions from local authorities, he filled out Form 6, the application for new voters. He was told his case would be resolved.
“It has been several days,” Ohiyaar said. “The final list is out, but my name is still not there. No one has contacted me. I am the one who keeps calling them.”BLO Kabiraj said that he, too, had been trying to talk to the election officials and had been repeatedly visiting their office to get Ohiyaar’s name back on the roll, along with a few others who also have been either “unmapped” or "dead".
But “they haven’t been of any help,” the BLO said. “I don’t know what to do now, how do I get his name added back.”
Ohiyaar has been declared dead and removed from the electoral roll.
For Ohiyaar, the stakes extend beyond the right to vote. In his understanding, shaped as much by lived experience as by official messaging, a voter identity card is not just a political instrument but proof of existence.
“We are poor, illiterate people. I don’t know the procedures,” he said. “So I leave it to the government to correct this. But I am scared.”
He paused before explaining why: “If my name is not on the voter list, I won’t get access to the government schemes. Can they pick me up thinking I am from Bangladesh or Pakistan? Why was my name deleted? What happened?”His fear is amplified by rumours across Bengal over what happens if one’s name is not on the electoral roll.
Schoolteacher, election official, disenfranchised
About 292 km further north, in the tea-garden belt of Nagrakata in Jalpaiguri district, Surojit Sarkar has been asking a similar set of questions, though his path to disenfranchisement has been different.
Sarkar, 40, is a schoolteacher and, until recently, a veteran of the electoral system. He has served on election duty six times, which many government employees have to do. For nearly a decade, from 2008 to 2016, he worked as a BLO, the very designation responsible for maintaining and verifying voter lists.
“If this is happening to a BLO, imagine what is happening to others,” Sarkar said.
Surojit Sarkar has been declared dead and removed from the electoral roll.
When the revision process began, he did what he had once instructed countless others to do: he collected the necessary form, filled it out and submitted it to the authorities. But when the draft roll was released, his name was missing.
Instead, he said: “I was declared a dead voter.”.
The designation followed him through the weeks that came after. On January 10, he submitted Form 6 online, completing what he believed were all required formalities. Two months later, on March 10, a message arrived: His application had been rejected.
His name did not appear in the voter list.
“People keep telling me that I am not there, that I have been declared dead,” Sarkar said. “So I am scared too. What if I am deported? What if I lose my job? This should not happen to anyone.”
His family, he said, has lived in the region for generations. His father and grandfather voted at the same booth where he once did, he said. He has, by his own account, participated in every recent election.
“After voting for so many years if your name is removed, imagine the trouble one goes through,” he said. “Do I even have a future here?”
Neither Sarkar nor Ohiyaar speaks in the language of policy or administration. Their concerns are more immediate, more existential.
“I just want my name back,” Ohiyaar said.
Sarkar said: “Everyone has the right to vote. We are permanent residents of this state.”