Kolkata, 2 August (H.S.) – With the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections approaching, the state's political discourse is once again turning towards the historical wounds of Partition and migration. The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced a large-scale campaign demanding a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, focusing on the plight of Bengali Hindu refugees who migrated from East Pakistan during the 1947 Partition and the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

According to a senior BJP functionary, the decision was formally conveyed to district-level leaders during a party meeting held on Friday. The state core committee had earlier instructed that awareness programmes and seminars be organised in each district to highlight this issue. “We will take this question to every booth – should victims of Partition be ignored while infiltrators who manipulated documents are allowed into Bengal’s democratic structure?” a senior leader said.

BJP state president Shamik Bhattacharya has also directed district units to emphasize that those who left their homes and crossed borders decades ago are the rightful claimants to be on the voter list, unlike those who have entered the state in recent years.

The BJP claims that border districts such as North 24 Parganas, Malda, Nadia, and Murshidabad have a significant presence of fake voters, and argues that an annual SIR process involving stringent scrutiny is essential to clean up the electoral rolls. Party strategists are positioning the campaign as a referendum on genuine participation versus fraudulent intrusion in the state's democratic framework.

Party officials insist that the campaign is not merely about documents but is a battle for dignity and identity. The BJP plans to take the campaign to every village, booth, and block, hoping to emotionally connect with Hindu families who have long felt that their citizenship and identity issues have been sidelined.

However, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has sharply criticized the initiative, accusing the BJP of attempting to polarize voters ahead of the polls. A TMC spokesperson said, “The BJP is deliberately reopening the wounds of Partition to spread fear and division in society. This is nothing but a backdoor NRC, which the public will reject.”

Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh