Anxiety and fear of disenfranchisement loom over adjudicated citizens before April 29 elections
Telegraph | 27 April 2026
With barely two days left for the second and final phase of the Bengal elections, fear of disenfranchisement loom over millions of voters who have been erased from the revised electoral rolls.
Appellate tribunals led by former judges are deciding the fate of voters struck off the rolls. In line with a Supreme Court directive, they are to publish a final supplementary list on Monday with names cleared through adjudication. Those who are cleared will be able to vote on April 29.
But the sheer scale of exclusions has dampened the hopes of those struck off the rolls. The first list cleared only 139 such voters, whose names were restored after adjudication and included in the electoral rolls for the first phase on April 23.
The Election Commission uploaded the list on its website on the night of April 21.
The 139 names were cleared for inclusion in the rolls spread across the 152 Assembly constituencies where voting was held on Thursday. The remaining 142 seats are set to vote on April 29.
A booth-level officer provided voter slips to a home on Dr Lalmohan Bhattacharya Road in central Calcutta on Saturday.
Slips have been issued for everyone in the family except one father and son.
Mohd Shamim Akhter, 50, and his 21-year-old son have been dropped from the revised electoral rolls in Entally. Akhter is an associate professor and head of the department of Islamic Theology at Aliah University’s New Town campus.
His son is an MBBS student at a government medical college in south Bengal.
“It felt strange not to receive a voter slip in my name. I have never missed voting since becoming eligible, but this time it seems almost certain that I won’t be able to cast my vote,” said Akhter.
“What is worse is the lack of clarity on how the tribunals are functioning. We are completely in the dark,” he added.
Earlier, after the SIR hearings, 60.06 lakh voters were put under adjudication, and 705 judicial officers were engaged to scrutinise their documents. Based on that, 27 lakh voter names were deleted from the list. Those whose names were deleted were allowed to appeal before the 19 tribunals set up by Calcutta High Court as directed by the Supreme Court.
“Our votes are being taken away now. Tomorrow, we may be branded second-class citizens,” said Sahid Iqbal, 40, deleted from the revised rolls in Metiabruz. His wife and a brother have also been deleted from the rolls. All three have filed appeals. They have been checking the poll panel’s website several times every day. But their appeals are still pending.
“The Supreme Court said the tribunals can conduct out-of-turn hearings. But there is nothing to suggest that the tribunals are doing anything to expedite the hearings,” said a lawyer who has filed appeals on behalf of more than 100 deleted voters.
On Friday, the Supreme Court directed tribunals to grant out-of-turn hearings in urgent cases concerning the deletion or inclusion of names in the voter list.