West Bengal Assembly Elections 2026 | Voting rights of 2 of the oldest snatched away in twilight years

Kolkata: “Amar vote kete diechhe (They took away my right to vote),” Subarna Bala Poddar mumbles, as her daughter, Sandhya Poddar, supports the frail frame of the 95-year-old to sit up on the bamboo mat she was lying on. “Amar sab kagaj achhe… tabu amar vote keno ketechhe…ami jani na keno (I have all the documents, but they still struck me off the electoral roll. I don’t know why).”  

Subarna Bala, who was born in 1931, migrated from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) along with her parents and the rest of the family soon after the Partition in 1947. The Narkeldanga North Road in Beleghata, Kolkata, has been her home for many decades. She had voted at Deshbandhu Vidyapith – a nearby school – for many years, before her advancing age made her take recourse to the home voting facility, introduced by the Election Commission for voters aged 85 years or more.

None from the Election Commission, however, has shown up in her cramped dwelling this time. In the twilight years of her life, when she struggles with declining health and pain, she has been stripped of her right to vote, thanks to the Special Intensive Revision of the electoral rolls.

Even as Beleghata and 141 other assembly constituencies across seven districts of West Bengal went to the polls on Wednesday, Subarna Bala has spent the day just like she would any other day – lying on a bamboo mat in her tiny room.

“They came to take my mother’s vote in May 2024 (for the Lok Sabha elections), too. But nobody came this time. We learnt that she had been deleted from the electoral rolls,” Sandhya says, as she shows Subarna Bala’s Aadhaar and Electoral photo Identity Card. “We don’t know very clearly why her name was deleted from the electoral rolls. What we have learnt is that it happened due to some mismatch in the way her name was spelt in the electoral roll and her bank passbook.”

Sandhya has just returned after casting her vote. “I will take you to vote next time,” she promises her mother – a promise, which she, herself, knows she may not be able to keep.

Chhapia Bibi Sheikh in Kalna in the state’s Purba Bardhaman district, too, had voted at her home in May 2024 for the parliamentary elections. But, like Subarna Bala, none from the EC has gone to collect the ballot of the 101-year-old from her home this time. She was struck off the electoral rolls during the revision exercise. So were her two grandsons.

She was, however, still hoping that the appeals filed by herself and her grandson to the tribunal against the deletion of her name from the electoral roll would restore them to the electoral roll in time, and they all would be able to vote. The hope was belied. Kalna went to the polls on Wednesday, and neither Chhapia nor any of her two grandsons could vote.

As many as 19 tribunals were set up in accordance with an order of the Supreme Court to decide on the appeals filed by lakhs of deleted voters but they so far restored the suffrage of only 1,607 across the state, including 139 in the 152 constituencies, which went to the polls in the first phase on Thursday, and 1,468 in the 142 constituencies where voting took place in the final phase on Wednesday. Chhapia Bibi Sheikh and her grandsons were not among the fortunate few.

 “My Nani (grandmother) voted more than 30 times in her life, but, at the age of 101, she was stripped of her voting rights,” the grandson of the centurion, Dulal Sheikh, says. “This is very unfortunate.”

 Subarna Bala and Chhapia Bibi are among the lakhs who could not cast their votes in the two phases of polling in West Bengal on Thursday and Wednesday, respectively.

Around 63.66 lakh voters, nearly 8.3 per cent of the electorate, had been deleted from the rolls across West Bengal since the beginning of the roll revision exercise in November 2025, till February 28. However, over 60.06 lakh more voters had been placed in the “under adjudication” category, and their eligibility to remain on the electoral rolls was subjected to scrutiny by judicial officers. The EC data showed that over 27.16 lakh voters of the 60.06 lakhs placed in the “under adjudication” category had been stripped of voting rights, while more than 32.68 lakh of them had been included in the electoral rolls.

Earlier, once the electoral rolls were frozen on April 6 and 9 for the 294 assembly seats going to the polls on April 23 and 29, no deleted voters had any chance to make it back on the rolls in time to participate in the elections.

But the Supreme Court ordered on April 14 that voters cleared by the tribunals, even up to two days before polling, would still be allowed to vote.

The order of the apex court raised hope among the deleted voters.

But, for an overwhelming majority of them, hope has remained unfulfilled, with only 1,607 restored to the rolls in time to cast votes.