Sixty per cent of voters in this Assembly segment on Calcutta’s southwestern fringe are Muslim. In Metiabruz, the special intensive revision of electoral rolls is not merely a political controversy — it is an existential crisis.

The numbers tell a stark story. The December 16, 2025, exclusion list of absent, shifted, dead and duplicate voters showed 58.51 per cent Muslim representation, broadly mirroring the area’s demographic makeup. But the “logical discrepancy” list was 86.87 per cent Muslim. Around 78,000 names were under adjudication as of February 28 this year.

Political parties and social workers who have tallied subsequent supplementary lists say more than 39,500 people have since lost their voting rights. The Election Commission has yet to publish Assembly-specific deletion figures.

A land deed dating back to 1898 has not been enough for Md Faruque Iqbal to prove his family members’ eligibility as voters

The burden of exclusion falls disproportionately on women. Salma Bibi, who lives off Slaughter House Road, says the SIR drive recorded her father as having six children — two more than he actually had. Her brother’s name was approved. Hers and her two sisters’ were deleted. Four more women in her family — her daughter and sisters-in-law — have also been removed. The men have been approved.

Many of those struck off produced documents stretching back four or more generations. Md Faruque Iqbal arrived at a local help centre clutching two land deeds stamped in 1898, bearing his forefathers’ names. His two brothers and a sister-in-law had been deleted from the rolls. “My grandson is the eighth generation of our family in this place,” he said. “Yet my family members have been declared illegal voters.”

Metiabruz carries multiple, layered identities. It is synonymous with Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh and a great patron of the arts, who was exiled from Lucknow by the British 170 years ago. Shah arrived at a ghat here at 34, spent his remaining 26 years in the neighbourhood, and lies buried there.

It is also the bustling hub of a thriving garment industry. Ostagars — often skilled tailors themselves — manage the entire production cycle, from sourcing fabric and employing karigars to designing, stitching and selling finished goods to wholesalers at the local haat. The area supplies readymade garments to markets across India and as far as the Gulf.

And Metiabruz is frequently, and unfairly, derided as “mini-Pakistan.”

“It is a completely false narrative,” said Kushal Debnath, a veteran trade union activist who lives in the area and runs a charitable clinic. “The last time communal unrest erupted here was in 1992, after the Babri Masjid demolition. Since then, people have lived in harmony.”

The constituency has no shortage of other grievances — chronic traffic congestion, poor connectivity to central Calcutta, and serious concerns about the Metiabruz Super-Speciality Hospital, recently in the news over allegedly botched eye surgeries. Tailors working in the stitching units that line the neighbourhood’s lanes have their own frustrations with GST rates and stagnant wages. But all of it has been eclipsed by the SIR.

“The GST rates are unfair and our daily income is too low,” said Sk Maytab Hussain, 25, a tailor on Akra Road who has lost his vote. “But right now, the most important thing is to get my voting right back.”

The Trinamool Congress won Metiabruz in 2021 by a margin of roughly 1.2 lakh votes, and the party is banking on the anger the deletions have unleashed. Trinamool candidate Abdul Khaleque Molla predicted the turnout would rise and said he was confident of winning by a lakh votes again.

(From left) Metiabruz residents Rowshanara, Meghna Khatun, Salma Bibi and Moslema Bibi, who have all been removed from the voter list. Picture by Sanat Kr Sinha

The CPM’s Monirul Islam pointed to what he called “formidable anti-incumbency” against the sitting MLA, and noted that the BJP’s weak presence in the area would undercut the usual Trinamool-BJP binary.

The BJP, however, senses an opening. One of Bengal’s largest Ram Navami rallies last month was held in Metiabruz. Candidate Bir Bahadur Singh said his party’s support base was growing and that it expected to have agents in most booths on polling day. “People are with Modiji,” he said.

• Metiabruz votes on April 29