Bengal SIR: In Raninagar, Predominance of Muslim Names in the 'Under Adjudication' List Unsettles Residents |
Listen to this article:
Kolkata/Raninagar (Bengal): Till before Budhurpur, the earth is solid, but once you enter the village located in the Raninagar assembly constituency of Bengal’s Murshidabad district, the soil dissolves into shifting, sandy stretches. The river Padma here, carves both geography and destiny. Houses stand on uncertain ground, fields are shortened and lengthened depending on the river’s moods, and almost every family has a member working in the southern states, sending money back home.
Here, on this fragile edge called Raninagar char – land made by silt deposited by the river – stands a one-storey pucca house belonging to farmer Prafulla Das. Directly in front of it is the home of his neighbour, Kamidul Hossain.
For years, there was nothing to distinguish the two households. Now, a line has been drawn, not on the land, but on paper.
In the final electoral rolls published by the Election Commission of India (ECI), the names of Prafulla Das and his entire family remain intact. Every voter in Kamidul Hossain’s family has been marked “under adjudication.”
Das does not step outside when called. From inside his home, his voice carries a mix of hesitation and discomfort. “What has started in the SIR [special intensive revision] in the name of religion has made me ashamed to face my neighbours,” he says. “They have lived here much longer than I have. In times of danger, they stood by us like family. Now this has brought division among us. I feel guilty.”
That quiet discomfort in one house, and the anxiety in the other, is not an isolated instance in the Raninagar assembly constituency.
Out of roughly 261,292 voters, nearly 92,796 or over 35.5% have been marked under consideration in this seat. This is a migrant-heavy region. Most families have two or three members working outside the state, and that reality has only heightened the sense of vulnerability. The pattern that emerges has unsettled residents the most.
Move along the Padma char belt, across a cluster of booths, and the contrast becomes difficult to ignore.
In booths 154 to 157, all overwhelmingly Hindu-majority, adjudication barely registers. Booth 154, with 1,309 voters and 99.64% Hindus, has only 15 voters under adjudication. Booth 155, entirely Hindu with 555 voters, again has just 15. Booth 156 (1,024 voters, 99.62% Hindu) has 5 such cases. Booth 157 (745 voters, 98.62% Hindu) has only 10.
Also read: In Bengal, SIR-Affected Voters Are Concentrated in Muslim-Majority, Migrant-Heavy and Competitive Seats
Then, the numbers surge.
Booth 158, where Muslims make up 93.11% of the electorate, has 323 voters under adjudication out of 927. Booth 159 (88.34% Muslim) has 508 out of 881. Booth 160 (91.91% Muslim) has 661 out of 1,170. Booth 161 (89.34% Muslim) has 744 out of 1,404 voters flagged.
In percentage terms, the shift is stark – from under 3% in the Hindu-majority booths to between 35% and nearly 58% in the Muslim-majority booths immediately next to them.
In this riverine landscape, where one village blends into another, the data appears to draw a boundary sharper than any physical marker.
There are 17 booths in the Padma char area under the Raninagar assembly constituency. Of these, 12 are Hindu-majority booths and 5 are Muslim-majority booths. According to a scrutiny of the electoral rolls done by The Wire, in Hindu-majority booths around 8-10% of voters are under consideration, while in Muslim-majority booths, the figure rises to between 45% and 57%.
What makes the exclusions harder to explain is that in Raninagar, only 0.91% cases fall under “no mapping”, meaning that in more than 9 out of every 10 cases, officials were able to trace the link of each voter with the 2002 electoral rolls. In other words, the overwhelming majority of those now marked “under adjudication” are not people with no historical presence in the rolls, but voters whose connection to older records appears to very much exist.
Alam Sarkar is marked under adjudication because his father’s name is written as Abul Basar, he was told. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar.
For those called to hearings, the process has often felt intrusive and bewildering.
Fazila Bibi says she was asked why she had six children. Mohammad Alam Sarkar, a migrant worker, was told his father’s name did not “match.” Others were questioned about family size or age eligibility.
Each question, residents say, has added to a sense that they are being treated not as voters, but as suspects.
Rumours have begun to travel through local markets. While many dismiss them, the anxiety persists.
Subeda Khatun is ‘under adjudication’ for allegedly maring it to the 2002 list before she reached eligible voting age. Photo: Joydeep Sarkar.
Abdul Gaffar, an elderly resident, says, “I do not believe rumours but it feels strange that after so many names have been excluded, the TMC [ruling Trinamool Congress party] is silent. I know everyone here, and I am astonished to see that only people from the Muslim community have been stamped ‘under adjudication’.”
“My great-grandfather’s grave is in this soil,” says Subeda Khatun. “He farmed this land. So why are we being made to feel like outsiders?”
Raninagar, in many ways, is a condensed version of a wider anxiety spreading across Murshidabad, Malda and Uttar Dinajpur – the minority belt in West Bengal where migration, documentation gaps and proximity to the border have long shaped people’s lives.
Businessman Zulfikar Ali from Shekhpara says, “Even though Hindus are a minority here, we have never been treated differently. Now, through SIR, that division is being created.”
This year’s Eid has been a quiet affair. Many migrant workers who had to come back to attend hearings, have chosen not to return for the festivities this year.
“There is work there,” says Sheikh Jan Mohammad, referring to Kerala. “We all have voter cards and Aadhaar cards issued by the government itself. For so long we voted on the basis of these documents, and now we are being told they are not enough.”
Sheikh Jan Mohammad is marked under adjudication because his father’s name is written as Syed Sheikh
Mostari Banu of Bhagabangola, who first moved the Supreme Court on the issue, alleged that migrant workers were being deliberately pushed into insecurity. “Migrant workers have been deliberately put into trouble by taking away their citizenship in a planned manner,” she claims. “This harassment is being carried out to divert attention from the many real struggles in people’s lives.”
“Once the Commission publishes the final list, we will go the legal route. It is true that a large section of the voters who have been excluded are migrant workers,” says Asif Faruk of the Migrant Workers’ Forum.
As the supplementary list nears publication, political reactions have split along familiar fault lines, turning the administrative process into a battlefield of narratives.
The TMC finds itself in a defensive crouch. Murshidabad MP Abu Taher Khan acknowledged the fear but did not tackle the question put to him head on.
“It is true that a fear has spread,” he said. “But from the party, we are working at every possible level while staying in touch with people across all layers of society. The opposition is taking out rallies, while we are continuing our work.”
The CPI(M), however, alleged a coordinated effort. Party leader Iqbal Haque said, “The wholesale exclusion of minority names has been carried out by Trinamool’s BLOs at the direction of the BJP’s Election Commission. It is entirely a joint conspiracy of the two parties.”
The BJP, meanwhile, dismisses the outcry as propaganda. Asif Iqbal, district BJP Minority Morcha leader, argues the exclusions are merely clerical. “Some Muslim names were excluded because of issues with the spelling of names, fathers’ names and so on,” he said. “After the process is complete, everything will be corrected and the propaganda will stop. We will do much better this time compared to the last election.”
But in the villages along the Padma, the impact is already visceral. A list meant to record voters has begun to reorder human relationships, introducing doubt where there was once belonging. As the ECI prepares to publish the first supplementary list today, the residents of Raninagar are not just looking for names but also for an assurance of their belonging.