Darjeeling\/New Delh: A Muslim family in Darjeeling, India’s West Bengal state,\u00a0 has said that authorities are blocking their daughter\u2019s name from the voter list despite several attempts to register.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the case comes from Ward No 19 of the Darjeeling Municipality, where members of the family of a resident, identified as Munir, say that five names from their household have been placed under adjudication during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter rolls.
The revision exercise is being carried out by the Election Commission ahead of the assembly elections.
Munir\u2019s daughter, Tanisha Khatun, a 21-year-old third-year student at Darjeeling government college, says she tried three times to get her name included, but each application was rejected.
\u201cI tried three times to get my name included in the voter list, but it hasn\u2019t happened yet. I am 21 years old and a third-year student. This time, too, my name did not appear. I think it is because I belong to the Muslim community,\u201d Tanisha said.
According to the family, Tanisha first applied to register as a voter last year. Officials rejected her application because her father\u2019s name had been entered incorrectly in government records.
After the mistake was corrected, she applied again. The second application was rejected because her name did not match the spelling on her Aadhaar card.
Tanisha then updated her Aadhaar details and submitted a third application.
Even after correcting both issues, her name still did not appear in the final list published after the revision process, the family said.
Munir said the repeated rejection has left the family shocked and upset. \u201cMy daughter is a citizen of this country and she is eligible to vote. Still, her name is not being included,\u201d he added.
\u201cThe BJP people do not want any Muslim Indian to become a voter. Only about 12,000 Muslims are living in Darjeeling and around 60 percent are under adjudication,\u201d he said.
\u201cWe are voters of the former MP of Darjeeling Hills. The BJP wants to delete our names so that we do not vote for our leader. But this will not be possible. We will fight till the end,\u201d he vowed.
Members of the local Muslim community say the issue has caused deep concern because their population in the hills is small. They say that when a large number of names from such a small community are questioned or placed under review, it creates fear among residents that their voting rights could be taken away.
Locals claim that nearly 60 percent of Muslim names in the region have either been removed or placed under adjudication during the current voter list revision.
Community members say many families now feel that their citizenship and rights are being questioned despite living in the area for generations. Some residents said the situation has created a feeling of isolation.
Earlier reports from Darjeeling also mentioned that around 30 Muslims received notices asking them to verify their citizenship. The notices reportedly came after complaints from a resident who questioned their status as Indian citizens.
Families like Munir\u2019s say they will continue to approach officials until the issue is resolved.
\u201cMy daughter has the right to vote like any other citizen,\u201d Munir said. \u201cWe will keep raising our voice until her name is included.\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Darjeeling\/New Delh: A Muslim family in Darjeeling, India’s West Bengal state,\u00a0 has said that authorities are blocking their daughter\u2019s name from the voter list despite several attempts to register. According to Kashmir Media Service, the case comes from Ward No 19 of the Darjeeling Municipality, where members of the family of a resident, identified as …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":166282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indian-occupied-jammu-and-kashmir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/01\/muslims-of-india.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196558,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196543\/revisions\/196558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}