Matua voters fear loss of voting rights as names vanish from Bengal rolls ahead of polls
Telegraph | 30 March 2026
Supplementary voter lists — the fourth was out on Sunday night — have failed to assuage fears in the Matua-dominated areas of Bengal with the mass exclusion of names ahead of Assembly polls.
Many fear they would be denied their right to vote, along with possible loss of access to benefits linked to electoral identity, intensifying anxiety that persisted since the start of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the poll rolls.
According to Election Commission sources, a significant number of names left out of the roll are from the Matua community. The scale of exclusion has been particularly stark in certain booths.
For instance, at booth 173 of Chandpara gram panchayat under Bongaon South Assembly seat, 183 out of 186 names were deleted in the second supplementary list. Many of those are from the Matua community.
Shilpi Biswas, a woman from the Matua community, said: “I have been voting for the last 16 years, and yet my name has been deleted. My parents died when I was young, so their names were not in the 2002 list. I am a Matua. The Centre said no Hindu voter's name would be removed. So why did this happen?”
Lakshmirani Singh Laskar, another Matua woman, said: “The age difference between my mother and me is 15 years. During the hearing, an official said that would pose no problem, but our names were left out.”
The issue has intensified tensions across nearly 20 Matua and Namasudra-dominated Assembly constituencies in North 24-Parganas, Nadia, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling. While the BJP maintains applying for citizenship through the CAA portal is the only way to secure future inclusion, the Trinamool Congress is advising people not to opt for the process as it may lead to "complications".
Union minister of state Shantanu Thakur and a BJP Matua leader, said: “Those whose names have been omitted will have to apply for citizenship under the CAA. There is no alternative. This time, they may not be able to vote. Their names will appear in the voter list later.”
To this, Trinamool’s Bongaon organisational district chief Biswajit Das countered: “The BJP conspired to remove names of Matua refugees from the voter list. They want to make the Matuas stateless and send them to detention camps.”
Caught between them, many Matuas remain unsure about their next course of action before the polls.