Counting them out

SIR could shift the electoral balance in West Bengal, but it has also become a question of belonging for the vulnerable

- BY KANU SARDA/KOLKATA

On a humid afternoon in Kolkata's Entally, Shamim Akhtar sits at a wooden table, documents spread out before him with almost ritualistic care. Aadhaar card, passport, electricity bills, old voter slips—each one a marker of continuity, of belonging, of a life lived within the system. For over two decades, he has voted in every election. This year, his name is gone. His wife's name remains. “No one is telling us why,” he said. “If I was a voter last year, how am I not a voter this year? How can my wife be recorded as my wife if my own name does not exist there?”

That question, simple, almost naive in phrasing, is today one of the most politically charged in West Bengal. What is unfolding under the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is no longer just an administrative cleanup. It is a moment of deep political, constitutional and social consequence—not merely about correcting errors, but about patterns of exclusion, and whether minorities, migrants and women are disproportionately bearing the cost of being written out of the electorate.