Congress, CPI(M) leaders in Bengal say ‘rising infiltrators’ narrative of BJP proved wrong after SIR draft list

Congress and Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders in West Bengal came down heavily on the Bharatiya Janta Party on Friday (December 19) and said that the “illegal leaks are increasing” narrative promoted by the BJP has been proven wrong after the draft list of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process was released.

CPI(M) State Secretary Muhammad Salim said the BJP leadership’s “enthusiasm to expel illegal infiltrators in West Bengal has faded” after the draft electoral rolls were published and most of the Muslim-majority areas were better mapped in the state.

“This is the reason why the BJP government has not conducted a national census because it is a general census covering all Indians. So calling Muslims spies or Rohingyas is the BJP’s way of dehumanizing people. This is not a Hindu-Muslim issue. There are a lot of marginalized people in India who are vulnerable and have no documents,” Mr Salim said. He added that many vulnerable people from tribal communities, women, rental house owners, street dwellers, have a chance of being excluded from the SIR process due to lack of concrete documentation and these need to be examined.

It has raised questions about how people whose names are not on the draft electoral roll but are legal Indian citizens will be included in the list. He charged that the BJP and RSS were not only against Muslims but against all minorities and the marginalised, including caste minorities and women.

Ghulam Ahmad Mir, MLA from Jammu and Kashmir, said that the rumor spread by the BJP leadership in West Bengal that there are a large number of “infiltrators” in the state has been proven false. “Of the 58 lakh people deleted from the Bengal voter rolls, 24 died. I ask them (BJP), how many ‘leakers’ are in this list?” Mr. Mir asked. He said that even though there were some undocumented people in Bengal, most of them were minorities from nearby Bangladesh and all of them came for humanitarian purposes.

Mr. Mir added that no one is against SIR, rather they are only against the “hasty” process followed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to carry out the SIR process.

The draft electoral roll was published on Tuesday, December 16, and 58 lakh people were deleted from the list. Around 24.16 lakh voters were found to have passed away, 32.65 lakh voters were shifted and absent, and 1.38 lakh voters were found to have duplicate registration at more than one place.

The final voter list will be published on February 14, 2025.

West Bengal will hold the State Legislative Assembly in mid-2026.