‘Undeclared NRC’: Voter Roll Revision A Double-Edged Political Sword in Bengal

Relentless detention of Bengali-speaking Muslims from Delhi and other states has triggered NRC-panic.

Since the end of April, Bengali-speaking Muslims have been detained in their dozens, and even hundreds, in the anti-infiltrator drive being carried out in BJP-ruled states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Assam.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

Tahajul Mandal is all praises for West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee government. In June, Maharashtra police had detained his son, Fazer, and daughter-in-law, Taslima, and handed them over to the Border Security Force (BSF) for deportation to Bangladesh. The BSF pushed them out, allegedly at gunpoint, in the dead of the night on 14 June. 

As soon as the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) called Mandal over the phone, informing him that his son and daughter-in-law were being held in their custody, Mandal reached out to the local leaders of the ruling party and also the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). 

“I’m thankful to the chief minister, the police, the zilla parishad and panchayat members. They proactively ensured my son and daughter-in-law were safely brought back home,” said Mandal, a resident of North 24 Parganas district in southern Bengal.  

Bengali Muslims in Quandary

As of the second week of July, there are many like Mandal in West Bengal’s Muslim-concentration districts of Murshidabad, Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, Birbhum, Nadia, South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas who feel relieved that West Bengal is not a state ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Bengal becoming a BJP-ruled state is our worst nightmare,” said a migrant worker from Malda who was detained in Gujarat in April. He did not want to be named, fearing police retribution, as he continued to work in Gujarat following his release. He has been working in Surat’s garment industry for over a decade.  

Since the end of April, Bengali-speaking Muslims have been detained in their dozens, and even hundreds, in the anti-infiltrator drive being carried out in BJP-ruled states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Assam.

In many cases, the West Bengal police, West Bengal Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board (WBMWWB) and the local TMC leaders are coming to their rescue in confirming nationality. 

This, in turn, is turning them dependent on the state government and the ruling party. Murshidabad resident, Razibul Sheikh from Jalangi, who was harassed and detained in Odisha, echoed Manirul.

“The police in Odisha appeared to believe the BJP’s campaign that all Bengali-speaking Muslims are Bangladeshis illegally settled in West Bengal for vote-bank politics."

Razibul Sheikh, Migrant Worker, Jalangi

Anti-BJP sentiment does not mean by any means that those suffering are pleased with Bengal’s ruling party. Many think the state government and the ruling party, often accused of communal appeasement, are not doing enough to stop these mass detentions. 

Osman Gani Sheikh, a resident of Dolua village in Beldanga block of Murshidabad, was upset that despite such a drive going on in multiple states since the end of April, the West Bengal government appeared to have done little to stop such harassment. 

“What has the TMC done, except for issuing statements? Where are the protests?” he asked.

He identified himself as an “active TMC worker” and sounded honestly upset that the party and the government was not dealing with the situation effectively. 

“Just writing letters to other governments wouldn’t help us. This random and indiscriminate detentions need to be stopped."

Osman Gani Sheikh, TMC Worker, Murshidabad

His cousin, Atikul Sheikh, was detained in Odisha along with about 400 others in Odisha’s Sundargarh district at the dead of night on 7 July. As of 10 July evening, he had not been released, as the police in Odisha were not satisfied with his papers. 

Rafiqul Sheikh, a cousin of Malda district resident Salamat Sheikh who was detained in Odisha, echoed the concerns.

“The TMC should have staged protests in Delhi and sent their MLAs and MPs to the states where such harassment is going on. Can’t the government approach the judiciary?” he asked.  

Some such people suspect that the TMC is not launching street protests because the party, of late, has been more inclined towards preventing Hindu polarisation. 

Electoral Roll Revision Sparks Concerns

Amidst the widespread state of panic among Muslims in Bengal, the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s move to conduct Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll, first in Bihar and then in West Bengal, has added to the anxieties. 

In a state where Muslims form over one-fourth of the population, the issue has gained electoral significance, especially with the assembly elections due in less than a year. 

Bihar-based parties like the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and CPI(ML)(Liberation) have opposed the SIR, comparing it with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The Congress has also joined these parties in hitting the streets in Bihar, opposing the ECI’s move. 

While the TMC has not organised any street protests yet, party leaders like Rajya Sabha MPs Samirul Islam and Lok Sabha MP Mahua Moitra have been regularly raising the issue in public forums and through social media platforms. Islam, who heads the WBMWWB, is also playing a key role in coordinating the victims of illegal detentions and deportations, and the administration to ensure the detainees’ safe return.  

TMC Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy told The Quint that since the ECI’s intensive revision has been challenged in the Supreme Court, he does not want to comment on the legal aspect. However, there are a couple of things on which, he feels, the people should get an answer from the ECI.

“First, the ECI used to acknowledge 13 documents for voting. From these, they have now arbitrarily removed Aadhaar and ration cards without any proper explanation. And second, this is a major reform but the ECI has not conducted any public hearing."

Sukhendu Sekhar Roy, TMC Rajya Sabha MP

He alleged that the BJP, having been repeatedly snubbed by the people of Bengal in the elections of 2021 and 2024 and the local body and by-elections, “has unleashed the Assam-model of NRC at the nation-wide scale as a revenge against the people of Bengal.” 

Roy sounded confident that the people will “give the BJP two tight slaps on both cheeks” in the assembly general election scheduled next year. 

The absence of major protests on the streets, nevertheless, is an intriguing affair. A senior TMC leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the party “is not inclined to enter a trap laid by the BJP.” 

By trap, the leader meant the BJP’s alleged attempt to turn citizenship into the main electoral issue in Bengal to push welfare and development-related issues to the background. Bengal BJP leaders have mostly maintained silence, waiting for proper instructions from the central leadership. 

The Dilemmas of Citizenship

The Left parties and the Congress have not been very active in the streets either. “If the Left and the Congress start hitting the streets seeking government action in ending the harassment Bengali Muslims are facing outside, it might force the TMC to be more active in dealing with the issue,” a Murshidabad-based schoolteacher and social worker told The Quint. 

He requested anonymity as he said that he himself is a TMC teachers’ wing member and did not want to irk the party.

There seemed to be a dilemma in the Left and Congress camp as well. “Making too much noise over the issue can help both the TMC and the BJP’s ploy to polarise voters on communal lines,” said a veteran Left leader. 

The CPI(M) has not addressed the issue much on social media platforms either. In the first 10 days of July, the party state unit’s social media posts were mostly on the 9 July Bharat Bandh and lawlessness in West Bengal and ‘anti-people policies’ of the Modi government. However, the citizenship screening controversy found no place.  

CPI(M) state secretary Md Salim said that what’s happening in the name of citizenship screening is part of a comprehensive plan to polarise voters or communal lines and disenfranchise the most marginalised lot ahead of the assembly elections in Bihar, West Bengal, and Assam. 

“Both the BJP and the TMC gained from the polarisation of voters over the CAA-NRC issues in the 2019 parliamentary election and the 2021 assembly election. That’s why both parties are keen on reviving the issue and creating fear psychosis among the voters. But we think the effect would be different this time."

Md Salim, CPI(M) state secretary

The Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) which came in force in April 2024. It grants citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from India’s Muslim-majority neighbours, ensuring that Hindu migrants from Bangladesh are not affected by citizenship screening exercises. 

According to Salim, the CAA-NRC targeted primarily Muslims, while the ECI-led SIR would not spare Hindus either. The BJP would find it difficult to please the harassed Hindus. On the other hand, Muslims who electorally supported the TMC seeking protection from the BJP’s communal onslaughts would also judge how much the TMC has actually been able to protect them. 

However, the Left is conscious not to let this issue dominate the political discourse.

“For the TMC, citizenship is becoming the only issue. They will most likely tread a Bengali chauvinist path. But for us, citizenship is only one of the issues. We don’t want the other real issues plaguing people’s lives to get drowned,” Salim said. 

Assam NRC Impact

Curiously, the TMC upped the ante on the issue after the ECI announced its SIR plan for Bihar. CM Banerjee alleged that the ECI is using the exercise in Bihar as a pretext and that conducting such electoral roll revision in Bengal is their real target.

Before the ECI’s move, one major concern in the TMC camp was that almost all the victims of such detentions were Muslims.

A section of the TMC leadership were in doubt whether the issue would have much of an appeal to the larger Hindu electorate.  

However, the ECI’s move seemed to have freed them from the dilemma. They think the revision will eventually make Hindus, too, run for their papers and that harassment would adversely impact the BJP. 

Thereafter, the case of Uttam Kumar Brajabasi, a Hindu resident of Assam-bordering Cooch Behar district of northern West Bengal, gave the TMC more ammo. Brajabasi received a notice from a Foreigners’ Tribunal in Assam, asking him to prove his nationality. Local TMC leaders helped him find his parents’ names on old voter lists. The party also highlighted the instance in a big way to warn Hindus that they were not safe either. 

In a 7 July social media post, the TMC alleged that “Bangla-Birodhi” (anti-Bengal) BJP had “unleashed a sinister, three-pronged assault on our people, and the execution is already underway.” 

The party pointed out how Assam’s NRC notices were being sent to legitimate Indian citizens in Bengal “to harass and intimidate them”, the ECI's SIR exercise “is being pushed ahead of the 2026 elections to disenfranchise millions” and how workers from Bengal are being branded as illegal Bangladeshis in BJP-ruled states and forcibly deported with the BSF’s help. 

“It's a full-blown war on Bengalis. A cultural purge, designed by a party that simply can’t stomach rejection. They lost (in) Bengal. Now they want revenge,” the TMC alleged. 

Jyoti Chatterjee, a spokesperson of Bengal BJP, said that the anti-infiltration drive became necessary from the perspective of both national security and job security. 

“Thousands of people from Bangladesh have got themselves enrolled in Bengal’s voter list and are working as migrant workers in other states. These illegal migrants are serving as the TMC’s illegal vote-bank in Bengal on the one hand, and on the other are eating away the jobs that Bengal’s native Muslims should have go.”

Jyoti Chatterjee, spokesperson, BJP Bengal

Asked if the actions were not pushing Bengal’s Muslims towards state government and ruling party’s dependence, paving way for pro-TMC polarisation of Muslim votes, Chatterjee said, “Our party always prioritises national interests over electoral interests.”  

(Snigdhendu Bhattacharya is a journalist who writes on politics, history, culture, environment and climate change. He has authored books on leftwing insurgency and Hindu nationalism. This is an opinion piece. The views expressed above are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)