Minority-heavy border belts have least ‘unmapped’ voters
Times of India | 17 December 2025
Kolkata/Malda/Murshidabad: The border districts of Malda, Murshidabad and the two Dinajpurs, with sizeable minority voters, were under intense scrutiny not just from political parties but also the Election Commission. The draft SIR rolls released on Tuesday saw these regions reporting the least number of ‘unmapped' voters compared to Bengal's other districts.
The ‘unmapped' category refers to voters whose names or the names of their parents are missing from the final electoral rolls. The EC has clarified that "unmapped" voters will be eligible for hearings that will continue till Jan 15.
Malda has a 1.9% no-mapping figure (60,261 voters), and Murshidabad 2% (1.2 lakh voters). In comparison, the unmapped (no-mapping) figure for Nadia stands at 6.1% while that of Darjeeling is 9%, both of which are also border areas.
North Dinajpur's unmapped figure stands at 3.2% and South Dinajpur has recorded no-mapping stats, a bit on the higher side, at 5.4%. The comparative figures for Kolkata South or North 24 Parganas stand at 11.5% and 8.8%, respectively.
An assembly-wide study of Murshidabad and Malda reveals that the highest number of unmapped voters in these areas was in Bhagwangola (2.6%). In Lalgola (1.1%), Shamsherganj (1%), Raninagar (0.9%), Raghunathganj (0.7%), Hariharpara (0.6%, one of the lowest in the state), Sujapur of Malda (0.5%) and Domkal (0.4%) voters are unmapped.
"Assembly constituencies dominated by minorities like Sujapur, Mothabari, Ratua, Malatipur, Chanchal or Harishchandrapur show no significant deletion in comparison with those dominated by the majority community," explained Sayoni Chowdhury, a political science professor who analyses SIR statistics.
For the record, the highest number of 23,953 deletions in Malda was reported from English Bazaar, which has a mixed population, while the majority-dominated Gazole and Habibpur recorded 16,996 and 16,375 deletions. The minority-dominated Mothabari has 9,914 deleted voters.
Rahim Bakshi, Malda's Trinamool president, said: "BJP, with its malicious campaign against Muslims, tried to instil fear by raising the infiltration bogey. But the draft roll has exposed the truth."
In Malda's Gazole and Habibpur, the lion's share of deleted voters belong to the Hindu Namasudra or Matua community, said TMC insiders.
However, BJP is not ready to buy the Trinamool version. Ajoy Ganguly, the Malda BJP president, said: "This list is not final. There are more names to be deleted."
Retired teacher Md Ataur Rahman, a history researcher of Malda, said: "Minorities in this part of the world have their presence dating back to the 14th century before Sher Shah. No wonder many of them can produce land records dating back 100 years."
Naru Gopal Mukherjee, chairman of Berhampore municipality, claimed that fake narratives created by BJP have now been proved wrong "once and for all". Shakharav Sarkar, a BJP observer for the area, though, claimed that more names will get deleted.