Voter first, vote later: Rally demands restoration of rights removed through electoral rolls
Telegraph | 12 April 2026
A 71-year-old woman suffering from arthritis walked nearly 3km in a rally protesting the special intensive revision of electoral rolls.
Keya Chattopadhyay, a resident of Baghajatin, has retained her vote in the Jadavpur Assembly segment. She had come to express solidarity with those whose names had been struck off the rolls.
“Even though my name is there in the list, I came here in solidarity with those whose names have been wrongly deleted. A piece of paper cannot take away the voter rights of any citizen,” she said.
“It is completely unconstitutional that the voting rights of those belonging to marginalised sections are being taken away. There are many people who do not have proper documents. But does that mean they are not citizens of India?” said the retired bank employee.
She walked in a rally that started from Jadavpur 8B and culminated near Tipu Sultan Masjid on Prince Anwar Shah Road. A Jadavpur-based collective against the SIR organised the rally. Students, rights activists and senior citizens were among the participants.
Around 90.8 lakh names have been removed from the electoral rolls in the controversial and polarising SIR exercise.
The mass exclusion has sparked spontaneous protests from citizens. From free legal help for those who have lost their voting rights to an online petition to the Chief Justice of India urging restoration of their votes, support is coming from different quarters in different ways. But the sheer scale of the exclusion has posed a serious challenge.
Nazrul Ahmed Jamader, 48, a resident of Garia, said: “Many of us have voted for decades, yet today we are being asked to prove our citizenship all over again. This is not just about documents, it is about dignity and our fundamental rights as citizens.”
His name is also on the voter list.
Slogans like “Gyanesh Kumar hai hai” rang in the evening air as the rally marched. Posters such as “Voter first, vote later” were seen throughout the march.
Anurag Maitrayee, a transgender activist and resident of Jadavpur, said many transgender persons have been struck off the voter list.
“Even without the SIR, our identities are questioned in everyday life. We are not a vote bank. But we are citizens of this country, and our voices must be counted, not erased,” she said.
“The SIR is being done just to delete genuine voters. We have seen the SIR in Bihar; the way it was conducted makes it evident that in Bengal too the process is being carried out in an unconstitutional manner.”
Organisers of the demonstration against the SIRat the Park Circus Maidan have called another rally on April 14.