Why Revision Of Electoral Rolls Could Spell Disaster For Trinamool In Bengal

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has declared that it will extend the ongoing ‘Special Intensive Revision’ (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar to Bengal, and the rest of the country, very soon.

This roll revision exercise can prove to be disastrous for the Trinamool Congress in Bengal because it can result in lakhs of names of their voters being deleted from the rolls.

The ECI has announced that in the nationwide intensive electoral roll revision, names of those who are not ‘ordinarily resident’ of a state but have their names in the electoral roll of that state will be deleted.

This means that a person from West Bengal who has migrated to Rajasthan and stays and works there will be ineligible to remain a voter in Bengal. His name, says the ECI, will be struck off the electoral rolls of Bengal and will be included in that of Rajasthan.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar had said last week that “the revised rolls will exclude migrants who avoid being registered as electors in the constituency where they are ordinarily resident in order to retain their vote in their native place and state”.

“For example, if you ordinarily reside in Delhi but hail from Patna and own a house there (in Patna), your vote will be registered in Delhi,” the CEC had said.

The ECI said that this is as per Section 20 of The Representation of the People Act, 1950 (see this) which provides a detailed explanation of the term ‘ordinarily resident’ of a place. And persons who are not ‘ordinarily resident’ of a place cannot have their names on the electoral roll of that place.

Mere possession of property at a place will not make a person ‘ordinarily resident’ of that place, says Section 20 of the Act.

What this means for Bengal

This means that the tens of lakhs of migrants from Bengal who stay and work in other states of the country will have their names struck off the electoral rolls of Bengal.

According to the Bengal government’s own figures, some 21.67 lakh people from Bengal live and work in other states. These are all blue-collar workers or workers in the unorganised sector like construction and farming.

This figure does not include the lakhs of white-collar workers and professionals from Bengal who work and live in other states of the country or abroad because very few of them actually make an effort to return to Bengal to vote in any election.

However, say economists, the actual figure of outbound migrants (skilled and semi-skilled workers) from Bengal will be much higher.

“Collating figures of migrant workers from various sources like the Labour Commissioner of India, the Registrar General & Census Commissioner of India and the Election Commission of India would suggest that the approximate number of people who migrated from Bengal to other states for unskilled or semi-skilled work in both the organised and unorganised sector over the past five decades is over three crore,” Aniruddha Basu, a statistician at the Indian Institute of Statistics in Kolkata, told Swarajya.

The 2011 Census puts the total number of outbound migrant workers from Bengal at 24.1 lakh.

But CEIC Data, a renowned private entity involved in the collection of data globally and whose figures are taken to be credible, puts the number of migrant workers from Bengal at 3.34 crore (see this).

"The figure of 21.67 lakh migrant workers that we have are those who registered with us. We cannot say how many more (migrant workers) there are who have not registered with us,” Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Samiral Islam, who is also the chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board, told Swarajya.

“Most migrant workers would not have registered with this Board because they are unaware of its existence, or because they’re not conversant with the registration process, or because they haven’t returned to Bengal for a long time. Or even because they’re simply not bothered because registering with the Board does not provide them any monetary or material benefits,” said Basu.

According to the Bengal government’s own statistics, most of the outbound semi-skilled and unskilled migrant workers from Bengal hail from Murshidabad district, followed by Malda, Nadia, Birbhum and the North and South 24 Parganas.

While the demographic breakup of these migrants is not available, it is estimated that an overwhelming majority of them are Muslims.

Most of the Muslim migrant workers from Bengal are illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators

“We can safely assume that about 75 to 80 per cent of the migrant workers from Bengal are Muslims. And many of them (the Muslims) are illegal migrants from Bangladesh who have entered Bengal, obtained documents by fraud and deception to prove their Indian citizenship and migrated to other states for work as unskilled workers,” Sanjeev Gupta, an associate of the Amsterdam-based International Migration Institute (IMI), told Swarajya.

Gupta has been working on migration, especially illegal migration, from South Asian countries, for the past few decades. The IMI is a global network of social scientists working on migration.

Gupta’s views are endorsed by M. Srinivisa Rao, an associate of the Department of Migration and Urban Studies of the Mumbai-based International Institute of Population Sciences, an autonomous organisation under the Union Government’s Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

“The illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have no land or other assets in Bengal and since there is little work available in Bengal, they have to migrate to other states for their livelihood. That’s why most of the workers from Bengal working in other states are actually illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Bengali Muslims who are natives of Bengal also migrate to other states for work, but their numbers are just a fraction of the number of the illegal Bangladeshi immigrants who work in other states,” Rao told Swarajya.

Debesh Mohanty of the Department of Population Studies at Fakir Mohan University in Odisha’s Balasore told Swarajya that the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh have no option but to migrate to other states in search of work.

“They cross the Indo-Bangladesh border illegally and stay in Bengal for a short period only to get their Indian citizenship documents like Aadhaar card, voter ID cards and ration cards on the basis of forged and fraudulent documents through well-organised rackets. These are obtained within a period of a couple of months or even faster and after that, these people go to other states for work since there is no work available for them in Bengal,” said Mohanty.

How this affects the Trinamool Congress

An overwhelming majority of the migrant workers from Bengal form the loyal vote bank of the Trinamool Congress.

“Muslims of Bengal support the Trinamool Congress because the ruling party appeases them and they know their interests are protected as long as the Trinamool Congress is in power. As for the Muslims of Bangladeshi origin, they are highly vulnerable and have no option other than voting for the Trinamool Congress,” said political scientist Aveek Sen.

Like the CPI(M) before it, the Trinamool Congress undertakes a huge exercise before every election, be it to local bodies (panchayat and municipalities), the state Assembly or the Lok Sabha, to bring migrant workers from Bengal back to the places in Bengal where they’re registered as voters to ensure that they vote for the party.

“Train tickets are organised, buses are booked and money is sent for travelling expenses to these migrant workers in other states to return to the places where they are registered as voters. They are also given a good sum of money once they reach. And many of these workers, especially the Bangladeshi-origin Muslims among them who return ‘home’, become the ruling party’s goonda bahini who threaten, intimidate and attack supporters of other parties,” said Sen.

“These migrant workers are beholden to the Trinamool Congress, as they were beholden to the CPI(M) before 2011, for various reasons. The Bangladeshi-origin Muslims among them remain eternally grateful to the ruling party for facilitating their Indian citizenship documents and protecting them from persecution in other states. The sponsored travel to Bengal from their places of work (and residence) as well as some money in their pockets (provided by the ruling party) makes them loyal voters and fierce foot soldiers of the Trinamool Congress,” Deben Haldar, who teaches political science at Delhi University, told Swarajya.

Haldar, who has been researching voting trends among migrant workers from Bengal, Odisha and Bihar for many years, said that the Trinamool Congress is critically dependent on the votes of migrant workers in many Assembly constituencies.

If the ECI deletes the names of these migrant workers from the electoral rolls in Bengal, it will be disastrous for the Trinamool Congress in many constituencies.

West Bengal’s total electorate is over 7.5 crore. Of them, Muslims form a little less than 30 per cent, that is, an estimated 2.25 crore.

Most of the Muslim voters are concentrated in 74 Assembly constituencies in the state. But Muslims also form a sizable section of the electorate in at least 28 other Assembly seats and influence the outcome of the elections in those seats.

“If the names of lakhs of these migrant workers are deleted from the electoral rolls, especially in the seats where Muslims are not in a majority but influence the results, that will be calamitous for the Trinamool Congress. More so because of the consolidation of Hindu votes that has started happening now,” pollster Ashis Biswas told Swarajya.

Take the example of the Kaliganj Assembly seat where by-elections were held late last month. Kaliganj is a Muslim-majority seat where Muslims form 58.5 per cent of the electorate.

The Trinamool Congress candidate, Alifa Ahmed, got 1,02,759 votes while the BJP’s Ashish Ghosh polled 52,710 votes (read this). 

The number of registered voters in Kaliganj is a little over 2.48 lakh. A little over 75 per cent of the voters exercised their franchise in the by-elections.

Kaliganj Assembly seat, as elaborated in this article, has seen a huge demographic change since the mid-1950s. Kaliganj was, at the time of Independence (1947), a Hindu-majority constituency but is now a Muslim-majority one.

This demographic change has happened due to large-scale illegal influx from Bangladesh (and East Pakistan before 1971).

According to local BJP and Trinamool Congress functionaries in Nadia district (Kaliganj is in Nadia district), about 30 per cent of the Muslim voters of constituencies like Kaliganj live and work in other states as migrant workers.

Of the 2.48 lakh voters of Kaliganj, Muslims number 1.43 lakh. Thus, over 43,000 Muslim voters are migrant workers and not ‘ordinarily resident’ of Kaliganj.

If the names of these 43,000-odd migrant workers are struck off the rolls, then the Trinamool Congress will face a very tough challenge in the seat. In the recent by-elections, Trinamool’s Alifa Ahmed won the seat by a margin of about 50,000 votes.

Given the trend of consolidation of Hindu votes against the Trinamool Congress and in favour of the BJP, there is a good chance of the Trinamool Congress candidates biting the dust even in Muslim-majority seats like Kaliganj.

“There are a number of Assembly constituencies like Kaliganj with a huge number of voters who are migrant workers who live and work in other states. And a large majority of migrant workers hailing from districts like Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia, Birbhum, and the North and South 24 Parganas, are Muslims. These districts have also witnessed dramatic demographic changes due to large-scale and illegal influx of Bangladeshi Muslims. Hence, if the names of these migrant workers are struck off the electoral rolls, it will benefit the BJP and prove to be disastrous for the Trinamool Congress,” said political analyst Kunal Sengupta.

Sengupta said that a detailed analysis of the 2021 Assembly election results revealed that in as many as 45 constituencies which are not Muslim-majority ones, the Trinamool Congress won because of Muslim votes.

“Hadn’t Muslims voted en masse for the Trinamool Congress in these seats, the party’s candidates would have lost. And interestingly, BJP candidates were in second position in all these constituencies where the winning margin was less than 15,000 votes,” said Sengupta.

Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said that the intensive roll revision in Bengal is largely overdue.

“There are a large number of bogus voters in Bengal. The Trinamool has inserted the names of these lakhs of bogus voters in the rolls. And the names of migrant workers who live and work in other states should also be deleted from the electoral rolls of their native places as per the law of the country,” Adhikari told Swarajya.

Former state BJP president and junior Union Minister Sukanta Majumdar said that Section 20 of the 1950 Act rightly states that those who live and work at one place should be voters of that place, and not the place where they hail from.

“Present address should be the criterion, not the permanent address. We will welcome the deletion of the names of voters who live and work elsewhere but are registered as voters in Bengal. They should be voters of the places they live and work in,” said Majumdar.

A large number of political analysts and pollsters who Swarajya spoke to said that if the names of tens of lakhs of migrant workers from Bengal are struck off the electoral rolls in Bengal, and if the trend of consolidation of Hindu votes gets stronger, the chances of the Trinamool Congress facing a defeat in the 2026 Assembly elections is quite high.

What the Trinamool Congress plans to do

The party has already moved the Supreme Court challenging the ECI’s roll revision process. Trinamool’s Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra has filed a PIL challenging the roll revision process on the grounds that persons whose names are already on the electoral rolls are being asked to submit fresh documents.

“The ECI has asked people to provide any of eleven documents as proof of their eligibility. These documents exclude ration cards and Aadhaar cards which are the most widely used documents to prove citizenship and for other official purposes. This is being done to disenfranchise people,” she said.

“The Trinamool Congress is scared because the crores of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators living in India have only ration cards and Aadhaar cards which they have procured through fraud with the active connivance of the Trinamool Congress and the pliant state machinery in Bengal. If those documents are not sufficient to prove eligibility, then these Bangladeshi Muslim infiltrators will be disenfranchised and the Trinamool will lose power,” said Suvendu Adhikari.

Apart from mounting a legal challenge to the roll revision process, the Trinamool Congress is also planning a series of protests within the state and in Delhi.

“We will launch an intensive agitation to force the ECI to withdraw this roll revision. We are talking to like-minded parties to launch a joint movement against this sinister move to disenfranchise millions of Indians,” said Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien.

Trinamool leaders told Swarajya that the party may file a separate petition before the Supreme Court challenging the ECI’s decision to delete names of migrant workers from the electoral rolls.

“We are hoping that the ECI’s roll revision misadventure will be stopped on its tracks by the Supreme Court. But if the Supreme Court upholds the whole exercise, especially the deletion of names of voters who are not ordinarily resident of a particular place, then we are headed for a huge setback. We’ll then have to think of some way to retain the names of these migrant workers in the electoral rolls,” said a senior Trinamool Congress functionary who is also a Lok Sabha MP.

The Trinamool Congress is, clearly, pinning its hopes on the apex court. The Supreme Court’s decision will determine the fate of the Trinamool Congress in next year’s Assembly elections in Bengal.