Around 150 residents from the Uttar Laxmipur panchayat area under Malda's Mothabari Assembly constituency, staged a protest on Saturday morning over their exclusion from the poll rolls.

Protesters claimed their names were not there in the second supplementary voter list published late on Friday night.

Malda zilla parishad functionary Firoz Sheikh said that in booth 141 (New Pataldanga) of the Mothabari Assembly segment, only 149 out of 673 voters under adjudication had been included in the second supplementary list, with 524 names still unaccounted for.

Raisuddin Sheikh, a resident of Khanpur, claimed that of the 666 voters under review, only 379 were included, leaving 287 in uncertainty.

As protests continued, senior Trinamool leaders, including the party’s candidate from Mothabari, Md Najrul Islam, urged protesters not to fall into any “trap” or engage in disruptive activities. After an hour, the demonstration was withdrawn. “Many genuine voters have been excluded. We have taken up the matter with the Kaliachak-II block administration. The Election Commission is expected to issue guidelines on the next steps. We will provide all necessary help to such people free of cost,” he said.

BJP leader Nilanjan Das weighed in on the matter: "Our position is clear — no outsider should be included in the rolls, but every genuine Indian citizen must have the right to vote. We trust the EC will act accordingly."

Minister’s name

Minister Md Ghulam Rabbani, the Trinamool candidate of Goalpokhar in North Dinajpur, whose name was put in the under-adjudication category, could not find it in the second supplementary voter list as well.

Rabbani, who won from Goalpokhar in 2011, 2016 and 2021, said: “The EC is working with political motives. I have submitted documents like my voter ID, Aadhaar card, mark sheets and passport, with copies to the CEC, the district magistrate and the BDO. Yet my name has not been cleared."

He claimed nearly 78,000 voters from his constituency were under adjudication.

Additional reporting by Kousik Sen in Raiganj