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Bengal SIR Voter List: About 58,17,851 voters may be excluded from the draft electoral roll of West Bengal. Names of about 44,787 voters can be removed from Mamata Banerjee’s constituency Bhawanipur. Similarly, names of more than 10,000 voters can be removed from Shubhendu Adhikari’s constituency Nandigram.
Kolkata. The draft issued by the Election Commission regarding the voter list in West Bengal has surprised everyone. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the Commission has seen a huge impact. About 58 lakh names are being removed from the voter list of the state. This figure is not small, but is more than the total population of many countries in Europe. The biggest news has come from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s stronghold Bhawanipur. There too, thousands of voters’ names have been removed from the list. The Election Commission has taken this action by identifying deceased, shifted and fake voters. This cleanliness campaign can completely change the political equations of Bengal.
Are Mamta and Shubhendu’s troubles going to increase?
The most shocking figure in this list is that of VIP seats. The names of about 44,787 voters are likely to be removed from CM Mamata Banerjee’s assembly constituency Bhawanipur. Cutting so many names from one assembly seat can decide the difference between victory and defeat. At the same time, the Commission’s baton has also been used in Nandigram, the stronghold of opposition leader Shubhendu Adhikari. From there, names of more than 10,000 voters can be removed from the list. These are those seats where there is a fight for every vote. In such a situation, deletion of thousands of names is enough to give sleepless nights to the parties.
After all, where have 12 lakh voters disappeared?
The Commission’s figures have raised many questions. According to the report, around 24 lakh 19 thousand such voters have been found across Bengal who have died. But their names were still running in the list. What is even more surprising is that there is no trace of more than 12 lakh 10 thousand voters. They are in the ‘untraced’ category. That means these people are not present at their address. The question arises whether these were ghost voters who suddenly appear during elections. Apart from this, about 19 lakh 92 thousand people have changed their address, hence their names have been removed from the old place.
Why are most names being cut in border districts only?
If we look at the data, a special pattern is visible. Most of the names have been cut from those districts which are close to the Bangladesh border. Maximum names of 8.16 lakh voters are likely to be removed from South 24 Parganas district. Whereas 7.92 lakh names can be cut from North 24 Parganas. Sources say that the large number of removal of names in the border districts may indicate infiltration or fake voting. From Howrah also 4.47 lakh names will be out of the list. Talking about Kolkata, 3.90 lakh names will be removed from North Kolkata and 2.16 lakh names from South Kolkata. This shows that there were major irregularities in the voter list even in urban areas.
One voter, vote in two places! How was the secret of fraud revealed?
The Election Commission has also tightened its grip on duplicate voters. About 1 lakh 37 thousand people have been arrested whose names were in the voter list at more than one place. The Commission has now kept him as a voter of only one place and has deleted his name from the rest. Apart from this, 57,696 people have been found who have been kept in the category of ‘other’ or ‘fake voters’. The Commission claims that these were completely bogus voters. Only time will tell what will be the electoral mathematics of Bengal after the removal of these 58 lakh names. But it is certain that there will be a political uproar over this in the coming days.
