Voting in one of India’s most closely watched state elections began yesterday after a national voter roll revision removed millions of names and raised concerns over disenfranchisement in West Bengal, one of the few large states not governed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.
The election has national implications. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking gains in a state long dominated by a regional opposition party, while a victory for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee would bolster her position as a leading opposition figure.
A second phase of polling is scheduled for next week. Voting was also taking place in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Photo: AFP
The voting was part of a wider round of state elections testing the BJP’s reach in opposition strongholds. The results of the latest elections and the earlier polls in Kerala and Assam states and the federally administered territory of Puducherry were expected on May 4.
The election is taking place after a sweeping revision of electoral rolls by the Election Commission of India aimed at removing duplicate, deceased and ineligible voters.
About 9 million names — roughly 12 percent of the electorate — were deleted, including 6.3 million listed as deceased or absent and 2.7 million marked “doubtful” and pending verification, officials said.
Some affected voters said they had voted in previous elections and hold valid identification, but were removed without clear explanation.
Sheikh Najrul Islam, a 53-year-old paramilitary officer on election duty in West Bengal, said he last voted in 2021 and holds valid identification documents, yet his name no longer appears on the voter list.
“The Election Commission has deputed me to ensure free and fair polls. Yet, it does not consider me a citizen of this country,” he said.
In another case, Taibunessa Begum, a 62-year-old retired school administrator, said she was shocked to find her name deleted despite having a passport, pension records and earlier voter registration.
“It felt like being told I don’t exist,” she said.
Opposition leaders allege the deletions disproportionately affect Muslims and other marginalized communities.
Modi’s party said the revision was a routine administrative exercise carried out across multiple states, adding that any disproportionate impact in West Bengal reflects the presence of undocumented migrants.
They said that many Hindu voters were also removed.
However, critics link the deletions to broader political messaging by Modi and some BJP leaders, who have repeatedly suggested the revisions of the voter lists targeted people who immigrated illegally from neighboring Bangladesh.
Opposition leaders said such rhetoric has deepened fears among minority communities, particularly Muslims, that the voter roll revision is being used to exclude them.
Derek O’Brien, of the opposition Trinamool Congress, called the exercise “invisible rigging.”
“The motive is to disenfranchise voters,” he said.
Analysts said the deletions could fuel fears of longer-term consequences.
“Losing one’s place in the electoral roll can be deeply unsettling. It is not only about voting rights; it is about dignity, recognition and the assurance that one counts as a citizen,” political analyst Iman Kalyan Lahiri said.
For many affected voters, the issue is more immediate.
“This is not just about politics,” Begum said. “It is about identity, about whether we belong to this country.”
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS