Opposition flags mass disenfranchisement in West Bengal voter revision drive
Kolkata: The controversy over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the Indian state of West Bengal has intensified, with opposition leaders raising serious concerns over large-scale voter deletions ahead of the Assembly elections, terming the process a threat to democratic rights.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Communist Party of India (Marxist) chief M A Baby, in a letter, expressed strong protest over “large-scale deletion of voters” during the Election Commission’s SIR exercise. He cited reports claiming that “over 90 lakh voters, roughly 12 per cent of the electorate,” had been excluded from the rolls.
He said that the process amounted to “systematic mass disenfranchisement,” driven by “arbitrary criteria” and increasing reliance on algorithm-based exclusions instead of transparent verification.
He further highlighted the human impact, saying the exercise had caused “monetary loss, inconvenience, mental trauma and even deaths.” He also raised concerns over transparency, stating that voter lists were released in formats that did not allow public scrutiny.
Baby argued that the deletions disproportionately affected marginalized groups, particularly Muslims, women, and economically vulnerable sections, amounting to a denial of the constitutional voting rights.
Echoing similar concerns, CPI- ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya described the SIR process as an “unprecedented saga of mass harassment and targeted exclusion”, adding that millions of voters have been removed across several states, with West Bengal facing the most severe impact.
He said that in some constituencies, exclusion among Muslim voters had risen to 40–50 percent, calling it part of “the biggest electoral purge.” He also said appellate tribunals existed “only on paper,” leaving lakhs of affected voters without remedy ahead of elections.
Bhattacharya warned that if elections were held under such conditions, it would be “an unprecedented farce,” arguing that the right to vote was being reduced to “a matter of privilege rather than a fundamental right.”
The West Bengal election is scheduled to be held in two phases – on April 23 and April 29.
