An exercise ostensibly meant to correct anomalies in the voters’ list is increasingly being seen as an exclusionary tactic that could disenfranchise people, indicated conversations with participants and onlookers at a rally led by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday.
The worry, voiced repeatedly across the crowd and among bystanders, is that casting doubt on the right to vote could lead to questions about citizenship.
Some people Metro spoke to marched in the rally, while many watched as it crawled past. Their reactions ranged from confidence in the revision process to a palpable
fear that ordinary voters might be caught up in bureaucratic checks they could not meet.
Abdul Wahid, a retired teacher from Garden Reach, drew a parallel between demonetisation and the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
“When Notebandi was introduced, we were told that black money owners would be brought to justice. But what actually happened was a nightmare for ordinary, hard-working people. They were the ones who suffered the most, having to wait for hours outside banks. The SIR is Votebandi. The drive is supposedly meant to identify illegal voters, but it will torment ordinary and genuine people,” he said.
The fear was most acute among people from the margins. “I cannot read or write. Neither can my husband. My son, who studied up to Class VIII, works outside Bengal. I have no clue how to fill out a form. I have to blindly trust the government officials, and I am not sure I can do that,”
said Rekha Jana, 54, a homemaker from Amta in Howrah who was at the rally. Her husband and son are daily wage earners.
Several bystanders, however, argued that revising the electoral rolls was the need of the hour and that genuine voters had nothing to fear.
“My grandfather was a voter. So was my father and so am I. I have all the papers in order. Why should I be worried?” said Md Humayun, a retired state government employee and Beniapukur resident, who waited on the other side of the barricades near Victoria House to catch a glimpse of the rally. “Any government has the right to correct the voter list. No one should have a problem with that,” he added.
Iqbal Hussain, Humayun’s younger neighbour standing beside him, countered him. Hussain, who supplies drinking water in the locality, said: “My father passed away years ago, but his name is still on the list. Whose fault is this? The Election Commission’s. What were they doing? Now, suddenly, just before the elections, there is so much noise around the SIR. This reeks of a political agenda.”
Somnath Ghosh, 57, a Sovabazar resident and tourism business owner, echoed the allegation made by SIR critics — that the exercise is a conspiracy to introduce the National Register of Citizens (NRC) through the back door.
He noted similarities in the documentation demanded. “The documents the poll panel is demanding are similar to what the Assam government took from people during
the NRC exercise. The same documents were listed in the SIR notice for Bihar,” Ghosh said.
Long-time voters also expressed bewilderment and hurt. Ranibala Das, 54, a domestic worker from Baruipur who walked the full stretch with a large group, said: “I have never skipped a vote since I became eligible. That means I have had a role in the formation of successive governments. Then why do I have to prove my validity as a voter all over again?”
On the other end of the spectrum was Dipak Singh, who watched from the pavement. He works at a wholesale sari shop in Burrabazar. “Everybody knows that countless Bangladeshis and Rohingyas feel at home in Bengal. They are eating into our resources. The SIR should have been done long ago. These people should be kicked out,” he said.
A man beside him nodded and said the rallyists should be flogged — a comment that highlighted the deep divisions and volatile rhetoric surrounding the issue.
Promita Saha, daughter of Trinamool councillor Mitali Saha (Ward 9), who was at the rally, said terms such as “Rohingyas” and “Bangladeshis” are being used to distract from core issues. “Political leaders put a number according to their whims. Who has counted the number of Rohingyas? Nothing is backed by data. This government (at the Centre) is infamous for fudging data,” she said.
