Tension over SIR grows in Bengal; Death toll linked to stress hits 10

Kolkata: Two people died in West Bengal on Thursday, with their families alleging that anxiety caused by the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voter lists triggered the deaths.

The ruling Trinamool Congress has highlighted the incidents, claiming that the number of such SIR-related deaths has now risen to 10, including some cases of suicide.

In South 24-Parganas’ Kulpi, 45-year-old Shahabuddin Paik complained of chest pain on Thursday morning. He was first taken to a local hospital and later admitted to the Diamond Harbour Government Medical College and Hospital, where he died.

Kulpi MLA Jogranjan Haldar and Mathurapur MP Bapi Haldar visited Paik’s family at the hospital on the instructions of Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

“The family said Paik was panicking after finding his and his wife’s names missing from the 2002 SIR list. He also noticed discrepancies in his wife’s documents,” Bapi Haldar told reporters. “People are in panic mode because of the way the SIR is being conducted,” he added.

In another case in Birbhum’s Sainthia, Biman Pramanik reportedly grew anxious after discovering that the SIR electoral roll from 2002 had misspelled his surname as Pal. He had approached the local councillor of Sainthia Municipality’s Ward 14, Pinakilal Dutta, for help.

“He met me several times about the discrepancy. I assured him he need not worry, but he remained stressed,” Dutta said. Pramanik’s younger brother Bidhan added that he had also spoken to the booth-level officer appointed by the Election Commission regarding the issue.

Political observers note that the earlier SIR exercise, carried out over two decades ago, was not linked to citizenship and did not involve voter enumeration forms.

The current SIR process has already faced legal scrutiny — it was challenged in the Supreme Court after being introduced in Bihar. The case remains pending, with the apex court directing the EC to include Aadhaar as a valid identity document.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has strongly opposed the SIR process, led a protest rally in Kolkata on Tuesday. She refused to fill out her own enumeration form after it was delivered to her residence at 30B Harish Chatterjee Street.

“As long as every voter in Bengal hasn’t filled their form, I will not submit mine,” she wrote on her official Facebook page on Thursday.