Bengal’s ruling Trinamool on Monday called the death of a 60-year-old woman in Dankuni as the third death in the state that has happened because of the Election Commission of India’s ongoing special intensive revision of voter lists.

Hasina Begum, who lived with her daughter in Ward 20 of Hooghly’s Dankuni near Kolkata, was returning home on Sunday night from a shop when she collapsed on the road. She was taken to a local hospital where she was declared dead.

Local residents have alleged that Hasina was suffering from anxiety since chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar announced the special intensive revision (SIR) for Bengal and 11 other states and Union Territories.

On Saturday, the residents of Dankuni’s Ward 20 had held a meeting to discuss the fallout of the SIR exercise, which Hasina had attended.

“It appeared that she was quite concerned and anxious about what would happen. She genuinely felt fear,” said a neighbour.

The deceased’s name was allegedly missing from the 2002 electoral rolls, the cut-off date for the current electoral rolls revision.

Dankuni Municipality chairperson Haseena Shabnam met the family members on Sunday evening.

“Her name was not there in the 2002 list. She was worried about what would happen to her and her children,” Shabnam told the media.

The neighbours at Ward 20 have claimed another elderly resident in the locality had suffered a heart attack and has been hospitalised.

The Trinamool blamed the BJP.

“A stream of deaths on SIR. What we are witnessing is a deliberate campaign of terror whose predictable deadly fallout has now begun to show. SIR was never just about “cleaning” voter rolls. As Amit Shah himself has said, it is a tool to detect, delete and deport,” chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s party wrote on its X (formerly Twitter) handle.

Last week within a day of the SIR’s announcement 57-year-old Pradeep Kar of Panihati in North 24-Parganas died by suicide. In a note he had blamed SIR for his death. A 95-year-old resident of Birbhum’s Ilambazar, Kshitish Majumdar, was the next to die by suicide, while a third person in north Bengal survived a suicide bid.

“That admission [Shah’s comment on SIR’s objective], coupled with the way SIR has been rolled out, has churned an atmosphere of panic across Bengal, and today a 60-year-old woman in ward 20 has paid with her life. Another resident from the same neighbourhood is fighting for their health because of the same terror,” the Trinamool wrote.

“BJP is a party so desperate for power that it prefers to manufacture fear rather than win votes on merit. The blood is on their hands. To the people of Bengal: hold the line. To those in Delhi who thought you could rule by fear, your time of impunity is ending.”

Since the SIR was announced both the Trinamool and the BJP are playing to hype the fear factor. Several BJP leaders have said at least one crore to two crore voters will be disenfranchised once the exercise is completed. The Trinamool has also weaponised it and is repeatedly telling the voters that the BJP is out to snatch their rights.

Former IAS officer Jawhar Sircar, who had served as the chief electoral officer of Bengal over two decades ago, said: “It’s best not to create a panic on SIR being a citizenship witch-hunt. It is better to emphasise that as the Supreme Court had told EC that hunting citizens/intruders is not its primary task and has allowed Aadhar card as evidence for name in voters’ list, voters need not worry – or take drastic steps.”