West Bengal polls: 97-year-old refugee, retired teacher among those deleted from voter list

A 97-year-old Partition refugee who never missed a vote has been struck off the rolls. A 72-year-old retired teacher who once presided over a dozen elections has been deleted despite submitting documents. A 68-year-old man collapsed and died while waiting in a tribunal queue. The fallout from SIR has rippled across West Bengal.

Subarna Bala Poddar, born in undivided Bengal and displaced in 1947, has voted in every election—but her name is now missing from the rolls. Unaware of the deletion, she said: "Shorir dile vote debo (If health permits, I will vote)." If she fails to vote? She responded: "I have a voter's card. Why can't I vote?"

Her family in Narkeldanga, Kolkata, said she had earlier used the home voting facility. This time, despite submitting her voter ID, Aadhaar, passbook, and widow pension records, her claim was rejected. A spelling discrepancy—"Swarna Bala" in the 2002 rolls—led to a hearing, after which her documents were turned down. A fresh inclusion attempt through Form 6 also failed. Of eight family members, only four will be able to vote; the rest, including two grandsons, have lost their voting rights. A Trinamool Congress booth agent said the voter count in the area dropped from 1,326 to 1,092.


In Hooghly, S Asraful Haque, a retired teacher who served as presiding officer in 12 elections, has also been removed from the rolls, even as his family members remain listed. He submitted a passport, land records, PAN, Aadhaar, and bank documents. "We have been living here for generations. I have ancestral land records from 1944. In the 1956 voter list, my parents' names were there, and I have that document. My name was there in the 2002 list. Still, I was called for a hearing. No specific reason was mentioned in the notice," he said.

He has appealed to a tribunal. "Is it possible to delete the name of a person who has a passport, land records and pension order?" he asked after finding himself under adjudication and later placed in a supplementary deletion list.

In Ranaghat, Nadia district, Jibankrishna Biswas died after collapsing while waiting outside an SDO office to file an appeal against the deletion of his and his daughter’s names. His family linked his death to the stress caused by the process. The Trinamool Congress staged a protest, blaming the Centre. "Politics took his life," his daughter said.

Across districts, families have reported hearings without clear explanations, documents being deemed insufficient, and abrupt transitions from "adjudication" to deletion. For many, the right to vote has become a struggle through offices, queues, and paperwork—with no certainty of restoration.