Three days may be all they have. This is the fear hanging over the long queue outside the office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) in Minakhan on Tuesday, stretching onto the dusty footpaths, sheltering under the meagre shade of trees.
At 55.08%, North 24 Parganas ranks among the West Bengal districts with high deletions following the adjudication exercise. It’s not clear how many of them belong to the Minakhan block.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) finally shared a comprehensive list of deletions on Tuesday morning, more than a month after it began the exercise following completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
For those outside the Minakhan BDO, this means another round of lining up in the hope of getting included in the voter list, before it is frozen on April 9 (North 24 Parganas votes in the second phase on April 29). The burden of proof feels like a moving target, with no closure in sight; if the next step is tribunals, these are yet to start functioning.
Around 200 people are lined up at any time before the BDO Tuesday clutching documents and identity cards, kept in weathered plastic folders and tattered envelopes; others are riffling through the same, doing last-minute checks. Women outnumber men 4:1, confirming apprehensions that the deletions have a gender skew.
Armed security personnel and police keep a tense watch at the entrance, for any trigger that could set off violence. Central forces guard a collapsible gate that is locked, and behind which sit the BDO staff – reinforcing the gap between voters and the State that has marked the whole SIR exercise for many.
Aslam Molla, a 28-year-old tailor from Uttar Behari area, is squatting on the ground, meticulously arranging his family’s “history”. “This is my second time before the tribunal. I tried online but I couldn’t apply. Now I am trying to apply in person,” says Molla.
The problem is that while Molla claims to be 28, his Aadhaar card lists his birth year as 2020. He is relying on the fact that his father, Molched Molla, born in 1951, was a registered voter in 2002, when the last SIR was held, which as per ECI rules should ensure him straight entry into poll rolls.
However, in Molla’s case, not just him but also two of his eight siblings and his wife Nurnehar Khatun Bibi are among those “deleted” after adjudication.
In the absence of clear communication that voters can make online submissions to tribunals – earlier it was said they could do so in person – confusion reigns.
Chaleya Begam, born in 1965, says she paid a private operator Rs 200 to file an online appeal, but is here “to check if it was submitted”. Adds a hapless Chaleya: “Officials here say they aren’t accountable for online forms; they are only accepting offline applications.”
Among the crowd are “form fillers”, such as Subal Mondal. Besieged by requests to help file applications, he spends around 15 minutes on each, and charges between Rs 20 and Rs 50. Barely looking up from the papers in front of him, Mondal, seated on a plastic mat spread on the ground, tells The Indian Express: “It is not possible for people here to fill up forms as per the guidelines.”
Mondal does not have a permanent job and makes a living helping people fill up forms – usually for college.
In neighbouring South 24 Parganas, where deletions have been relatively fewer at 42.70% of the total cases under adjudication, the message to apply digitally seems to have had some success. At Bhangar 1 and 2, the BDO offices are eerily quiet.
Bhangar 2 BDO Partha Bandopadhyay says that 1,040 of the 16,735 cases under adjudication in the block have been “deleted”, a relatively low rate of 6%. Most appeals are being sent directly to the District Magistrate as per the EC’s guideline, and people should not be queuing up before BDOs, say officials.
They also insist that only those listed twice or unable to prove long-term residency have anything to fear.
That is little comfort for 45-year-old Akhlima Bibi, who is queued up just 15 days after a serious surgery, struggling against the heat. Her voice showing her exhaustion, Akhlima says: “I have voted five-six times before. Now suddenly, I am running from pillar to post. It feels like all our efforts to arrange documents have gone futile… My only appeal to the Indian government is this: we must get our names back on the electoral roll.”
Roshida Khatun, 40, a homemaker, voices what many fear will come next. “They might freeze my bank account or deny me hospital admission. We will not be deprived just of a vote, but also cut off from every government welfare scheme.”
Hasina Bibi, 36, who is out of the voter list unlike her husband, has the same apprehension. “I voted in the last two Assembly elections. What if the government suddenly says we won’t get benefits without a voter ID?”
“Our every fear,” adds the mother of three, “is turning into reality.”
People, whose names were deleted from the electoral roll, at the BDO office in Minakhan in North 24 Parganas on Tuesday. (Express photo by Partha Paul) 
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