BJP Wins West Bengal as Millions Vanish From Voter Rolls
Millions found their names missing from electoral rolls ahead of a state election in West Bengal that was won by the BJP. Officials call the revisions routine verification but critics say they disproportionately affected poor, rural, and minority communities.
Voters lining up at the polls in West Bengal. (Sajad Hameed / Jacobin)
WEST BENGAL, India – As campaign rallies, television theatrics, and symbolic culture-war politics dominated headlines in India’s West Bengal election, millions of voters were dealing with a less visible crisis: their names missing from the electoral rolls.
After more than a decade without a voter-roll-revision controversy of this reported scale in West Bengal, the latest exercise has triggered widespread political and administrative debate.
In Sarishakhola village in Keshpur, forty-four-year-old Isratan Bibi was troubled by the fact that four names from her family’s household allegedly disappeared from the voter list ahead of polling.
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