Bengal SIR row: SC, ST activists urge ECI to simplify rules, set up assistance camps

Representatives of marginalized communities have appealed to State election authorities to simplify the rules of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls for persons belonging to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, Matua and other deprived communities who are at risk of losing their electoral rights due to lack of identity documents.

Mrityunjoy Mallick, national president of the Scheduled Caste Federation, said at the Chief Electoral Office: “The scheduled caste vote in the state is roughly 34%. Of these, there are more than a hundred sub-castes. We believe that around 30 to 40 lakh people from marginalized communities cannot produce any documents to prove their rights as voters. Therefore, we have appealed to the Governor and election officials to simplify the SIR rules for these communities.” West Bengal officer in Kolkata on Saturday, December 6, 2025.

He added that they came to demand protection of the rights of marginalized people on Mahaparinirvan Diwas, celebrated on December 6 every year on the death anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar.

In a letter to the Chief Electoral Commissioner, the organization appealed for marginalized people to be able to contact any relative in their extended family whose name is in the 2002 electoral roll. In context, during the SIR, voters who can trace their own names or their parents’ names in the 2002 list will automatically be eligible for the draft electoral roll.

“We have demanded that the right of excluded persons to vote be protected as long as they are alive, if any family connection is found in the 2002 list through grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Especially for people for whom resources and documents are scarce, such as forest-dwelling Adivasis, Rajbanshis, nomadic Bede community, sanitation workers, cremation workers,” Mr. Mallick said.

He added that many people from marginalized communities were born domestically and did not have birth certificates.

“The list of 12 indicative identity documents also includes caste documents, domicile documents, land title documents, etc. We urge the Election Commission to organize camps for marginalized people who do not have these documents to get them done,” the activist said.

The Scheduled Caste Federation, in its letter, also called for consideration of married women whose surnames may not match their names in the 2002 list, and especially those displaced in West Bengal due to embankment violations.

“There have been several instances of displacement and socioeconomic deprivation, resulting in people from marginalized communities not having or losing their identity documents. These people are in a constant struggle to secure their lives and livelihoods. All the while they have not had time to think about documents,” Mr Mallick said.

He added that the voters who lived and voted for the formation of the current Union government and the State government between 2002 and 2025 “must be protected”.

As of December 6, 99.43% of counting forms from 7.66 crore voters have been successfully collected and digitized. On Saturday, the number of ‘uncollected’ forms of dead, displaced, duplicate or absent voters crossed 55 lakh.