A 68-year-old disenfranchised voter from Nadia died after collapsing in a queue to submit a petition before the SIR appellate tribunal in Ranaghat on Thursday afternoon, in an incident that has once again foregrounded the human cost of the roll revision process.

Jiban Krishna Biswas, a resident of Gyarapota in Bogula, arrived at the tribunal camp with his daughter Champa Biswas to challenge the deletion of their names from the voter list.

According to family members, he had undertaken the journey despite poor health, distressed over his exclusion. Shortly after joining the queue around 10am, he complained of unease and collapsed within minutes.

People tried to take him to the Ranaghat Sub-Divisional Hospital, 500 metres from the venue, but he died on the way.

Family sources said Biswas had been an enrolled voter for many years, but his name did not figure in the benchmark electoral roll of 2002 as he had been working outside Bengal then. In the preliminary final voter list published on February 28, his name and that of one of his daughters, Champa, were marked as “under adjudication”. In the supplementary final list, both names were struck off.

Biswas and Champa decided to approach the tribunal.

“He was ill, unfit to walk, but was mentally shattered after his name was excluded from the voter list, so he came here (to the tribunal),” said Champa.

“Who will I go to now to complain? Who will listen to me? My father has fallen victim to politics,” she wept.

In his youth, Biswas worked as a cook outside Bengal, she added.

Trinamool leaders, including civic body chief Koshaldeb Bandyopadhyay and candidates Tapas Ghosh (Ranaghat West) and Sougata Burman (Ranaghat South), protested in the Court More area of Ranaghat. Demonstrators blocked roads, alleging continued voter harassment in the SIR process.

Ranaghat SDO Md Suboor Khan termed the incident “unfortunate”.

The body was sent to Gyarapota after autopsy, where Trinamool's Krishnaganj candidate Samir Poddar paid his tribute.

"Biswas had been a voter under the Krishnaganj Assembly segment and voted till 1974. He moved out of Bengal for work and was re-enrolled in 2006. This created complications in mapping. It (the deletion of his name) was unjust,” Poddar said.