Congress candidate from Malatipur in Malda district, Mausam Noor, has demanded that the Election Commission settle the voter list first and then conduct the Assembly polls in Bengal.

A recorded video message of Noor was played at a meeting organised by the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) on the effects of the SIR in Bengal, focusing on Malda and Murshidabad districts.

Noor, a former MP of Malda Uttar, said: "There is anxiety all over Bengal. Of more than 60 lakh people under adjudication, 8.5 lakh are in Malda, and 11.5 lakh are in Murshidabad. There is a worry that their citizenship would remain or not. Around 70 per cent of the voters are Muslims. The names of genuine voters have been deleted, but the names of some dead people appear on the rolls."

She added: "Who is responsible.... We are Indians and Indians are being persecuted....When we are campaigning, we ask people for their votes, and they reply that their name is not on the voter list..."

"I would like to tell the chief election commissioner and the EC, first fix the voter list, then hold voting. First, finalise the voters' list. If there are voters who are not genuine, take action. But stop harassing genuine voters."

Murshidabad activist Mohbul Hoque, who appeared online, listed several polling booths in Mothabari, Baisnabnagar, and Samserganj Assembly segments where hardly any voters were cleared in the adjudication process.

"In 18 polling stations in Samserganj, the names of all those under adjudication have been deleted."

Sabir Ahamed of Sabar Institute, in an online appearance, explained that Muslims had been disproportionately targeted in the final electoral roll. "Also, the names of a large number of women and Matuas have been deleted, as well as those from the transgender and Chinese communities.... ASDD (Absentee, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate) and unmapped lists show balanced or low Muslim exclusion. However, logical discrepancy lists show massive spikes in Muslim removal."

Sabar Institute's seat-wise analysis of voter lists showed that deletions of Muslim names were much higher than their population recorded in the last census. Deletions under the SIR in the Matua belt are almost 2.5 times higher than the state average.

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan said: "They tried this in Assam. But in Assam, they were not able to do much targeting because the Supreme Court supervised it. Seventy per cent of people whose names were deleted in the NRC in Assam were Hindus and 30 per cent were Muslims — roughly corresponding to their population in Assam. Now, they thought that they would adopt a new strategy. The SIR will be done in such a way without any transparency and through EC, which has now become their puppet, they will get Muslims removed."

APCR national secretary Nadeem Khan said: "We are asked even by the court why those people are not protesting when their names have been deleted. And when those people raised protests, 35 people were arrested by the NIA. The area where the protests were going on, and where the arrests were made, are completely different locations, as is the area where the tribunal was sitting."