Cooch Behar, Nov. 6 -- A review meeting on the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was held on Thursday at the Cooch Behar Utsav Auditorium in the presence of Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti and state Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal. However, the event saw unexpected tension as residents from the district's 51 former enclaves gathered outside the venue, expressing deep concern over being allegedly left out of the voter enumeration process.

The enclave residents, fearing exclusion from the SIR list, tried to meet the Chief Electoral Officer but were unable to do so. Instead, they met with the District Magistrate of Cooch Behar and submitted their grievances regarding the omission of their names from voter forms.

Following the 2015 Land Boundary Agreement between India and Bangladesh, 111 Indian enclaves within Bangladesh were merged with Bangladesh, while 51 Bangladeshi enclaves within India became part of India. Residents were granted the right to choose their nationality and those who opted to stay in India were granted Indian citizenship, voter ID cards, Aadhaar cards and other official documents.

However, according to enclave residents, the ongoing SIR process is being conducted based on the 2002 voter list, leaving out many who received citizenship after 2015. They allege that the new forms distributed by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) do not contain provisions to include their names, creating widespread anxiety among the enclave population.

Noor Navi Miya, a resident of the Watrigach enclave, said: "We became Indian citizens after the enclave exchange on July 31, 2015. But when BLOs visit for SIR work, there's no place for our names in the forms. We are worried our names will be left out. We came here to meet Manoj Agarwal, but couldn't. So we met the District Magistrate, who assured us that he would look into the matter and ensure everyone's name is included."

Responding to the issue, Manoj Agarwal assured that there would be "no problems" for any eligible voter residing in the former enclaves and that necessary steps would be taken to address their concerns.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.