Lakhs of ‘doubtful voters’ deleted in Assam based on BJP complaints, says Himanta Sarma

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday claimed that lakhs of “doubtful voters” had been removed in the state during the special revision of electoral rolls, PTI reported.

Several of these deletions had taken place based on complaints filed by workers of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, he added.

The chief minister’s comment came a day after the Election Commission published the final voter list for the state. An additional 2.4 lakh names were deleted in the final list after 10 lakh voters were removed from the draft released in December.

“This is only the beginning,” Sarma said during a press conference. “Names of more such people will be deleted when the special intensive revision is conducted.”

The Election Commission had been conducting a special revision of the voter list in Assam, which is similar to the usual updates to the electoral roll. Assam is not among the 12 states and Union Territories where the poll panel is conducting the special intensive revision of the voter lists.

“As far as possible, our party members filed complaints,” the BJP leader said. “Names have been struck off based on these.”

On January 27, Sarma claimed that four lakh to five lakh “Miya” voters would be deleted when the special intensive revision takes place in the state, and acknowledged that the BJP government had “made arrangements” to preliminarily prevent them from voting.

A day later, Sarma said that BJP workers had filed more than five lakh complaints against suspected foreigners during the special revision.

Critics had said at the time that Sarma had “brazenly expressed his government’s intent to send objection notices to the ‘Miya’ people” to ensure that lakhs of them are deleted from the voter list.

In Assam, “Miya” is a derogatory word used to refer to undocumented immigrants and is exclusively directed at Muslims of Bengali origin. They are often accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

Once a pejorative in Assam, from the common use of the honorific “Miya” among South Asian Muslims, the term has now been reappropriated by the community as a self-descriptor to refer to Muslims who migrated to Assam from Bengal during the colonial era.

On Wednesday, the BJP leader claimed that for the first time since the Assam Accord was signed in 1985, such a large number of voters had been removed from the list.

“Some people tried to frighten us,” he was quoted as saying. “But we went ahead and succeeded. Our BJP workers could convince BLOs [booth-level officers] that people against whom complaints were lodged were not residents. We worked a lot.”

The Assam Accord was signed between the Union government and the leaders of the Assam Movement, which was launched in 1979 to identify and deport undocumented immigrants.

29.9 lakh forms accepted during claims stage

After the draft rolls were published, the citizens whose names had been dropped from the draft could file their claims and objections till January 22.

As part of this process, of the 35.9 lakh forms that had been submitted to the Election Commission between December 27 and February 4, more than 29.9 lakh had been accepted and 1.3 lakh were pending.

More than 7.6 lakh Form 6s for the inclusion of names had been received. Of these, 5.8 lakh had been accepted and 33,459 were pending, the poll panel said on Wednesday.

More than 12.9 lakh Form 7s for deletion had been submitted. Of these, 10.6 lakh had been accepted and 43,536 were pending.

Over 15.3 lakh Form 8s for corrections had been received and 13.4 lakh were accepted. About 57,781 were pending in this category.

The state will hold Assembly elections in April or May.

Also read: Himanta Sarma’s remarks about ‘Miyas’ make a mockery of the Constitution