Citizenship Verification: A Bureaucratic Hell A West Bengal Perspective
Samik Lahiri
When the state demands proof of a citizen's existence, the process becomes a bureaucratic hell of paperwork. The cost of this grand endeavour, meant to identify a few 'infiltrators', a fictional enemy, is not merely in crores of rupees — it is written on the coffins of the many who died. The stated objective was to catch infiltrators, but its result was the tragic death of ordinary citizens and election workers. Who is responsible for this? The one and only Election Commission of India.
REWARDS FOR THE MOUNTAIN OF LABOUR
Let's look at the "miraculous" success of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process in Bihar. Total voters before SIR was 7.89 crores (June 24, 2025). Number of voters excluded from the first draft list: 65 lakhs. Total voters after the draft list publication was 7.24 crores (August 1, 2025). New names added in the final list were 21.53 lakhs. Voters finally excluded after appeal and hearings, deceased, shifted, duplicate, fake etc. was 3.66 lakhs. Total voters in the final list stood at 7.42 crores (September 30, 2025).
After such a massive operation, costing thousands of crores of rupees, only 3.66 lakh voters were excluded. While the Commission did not disclose the figures, an affidavit filed by Yogendra Yadav in the Supreme Court claimed that after all this fanfare, only 390 'foreigners' were identified!
Yes, only 390! 7.42 crores citizens were harassed, lost their daily wages, and the state spent a few thousands of crores of rupees just to find 390 heads! Even if the number were ten thousand, it would still only be 0.14 percent of the total excluded voters! The lives of 99.86 percent of the state’s citizens were crippled for the sake of this 0.14 percent! If the cost of running this 'citizen-finding game' was 1,000 crore rupees to identify 390 infiltrators, the per capita cost of finding a single foreigner is Rs 2.52 crore. And to exclude 3.66 lakhs the per capita cost is Rs 27,322.40. Is this not an economic crime?
This money could have built a modern primary healthcare centre in every village of a single state, or provided scholarships for thousands of school dropouts. But the state chose to make crores of poor people lose their daily wages and spend their life savings running around for proof of their birthplace and paternal property. What greater state injustice and economic waste could there be?
THE CHARADE OF DEMOCRACY
The trio of the ECI, the Union Government, and the RSS-BJP has proven that their job is to create a minefield for democracy! Nothing is born there except the harassment of millions of terrified innocent people, the death of Booth Level Officers (BLOs), and wastage of thousands of crores. An experiment is being conducted on how a supposedly independent constitutional body can be used as a remote-controlled toy of RSS-BJP, and its formal name is SIR.
The Election Commission has taken off its 'autonomy' cap and descended onto the stage of divisive and hateful politics. Their job is no longer to hold free and fair elections, but to cultivate the politics of division and hatred by following the footsteps of the RSS-BJP. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. But today it is clear that its pages can be torn out at will if they obstruct the grand goal of the RSS-BJP's 'One Nation-One Policy-One Leader'.
So, whose fault is it? It is not ECIs’ fault as they are performing their great duty! The real fault lies with the millions of people who still believe that the Commission is independent, and whose hard-earned money is still being stolen to stage this 'drama of independence'! And the few thousand crores of money spent on this entire farce are the 'research costs for taming democracy'! As a result of this research, democracy itself is now a 'caged bird' in the ruler's dominion.
THE INFAMOUS EPIC OF HARASSMENT
The most tragic aspect of this process is the harassment of millions. Imagine an 80-year-old person, who has never gone out of his/her village in life, standing for hours in the scorching sun just for a 'piece of paper'. Without these 'papers', his/her existence in India is illegitimate. When poor, illiterate, or semi-literate people are asked for their ancestors' birth certificates, it is not just harassment — it is a kind of institutionalised spite. It is the state's responsibility to maintain birth/death certificates, voter lists, and land deeds in order. Yet, today the state is burdening ordinary citizens with that responsibility and harassing them.
The biggest blow is the tragic death of so many people. Some died of heart attacks while standing in long queues, some BLOs committed suicide due to heavy workload and mental stress. Others took their lives out of despair for not being able to collect the right papers. In the state's ledgers, they might be mere 'side effects of the process'! But each had a family, dreams, and a life. The state did not ask for their work or their papers; it asked for their lives. The responsibility for these deaths lies with those who have made paper more valuable than life.
THE DRAMA OF ACCOUNTABILITY
After the failure and tragic results of this massive undertaking, has anyone taken responsibility? Has the ECI admitted the mistake and apologised? No. Sometimes the excuse of infiltrators, sometimes the complexity of old laws, and sometimes the blame is shifted to the failure of the local administration. In reality, the entire process has been designed so that the ultimate responsibility never falls on the top policy makers. This is a cruel administrative travesty. This aggressive process makes it clear that for the government, political objectives and vote-bank arithmetic are more important than human life.
This whole process has taught us that if the state desires, any ordinary citizen can be instantly made an 'outsider' and that citizenship is not a birth right, but merely a 'temporary privilege granted by the state'. So many deaths, the harassment of millions, and waste of thousands of crores of rupees — this is not just an administrative error, but a 'state crime', a severe attack on the country's democratic structure and the fundamental rights of its people.
THE FIGHT TO PROTECT RIGHTS
However, the fight cannot pause here. We must be focused on standing resolutely with the masses — especially the poor, the elderly, and the illiterate —who are frantically searching for documents and crushed by bureaucratic pressure. This must include widespread community education. We must actively organise camps to make citizens aware of the necessary documents, their legal rights, and the step-by-step process of filing claims and objections, thereby neutralising the state's malicious strategy of spreading fear and confusion.
HUMANITY CRUSHED BY NUMBERS
The number of bogus/false voters is on an average is 60–70 per booth, and this constitute the fundamental basis of Trinamool's victories, as Trinamool casts fraudulent votes in their names. Our unwavering objective is to aggressively challenge the flawed list the moment it drops on December 16th. We must mobilise immediately to meticulously identify and ensure the exclusion of every fake voter — the deceased, bogus, shifted, and duplicates. Simultaneously, our absolute mandate is to guarantee that not a single genuine, eligible citizen is expunged in this conspiracy of darkness. We must document every instance of official malpractice and bureaucratic negligence, building a case to hold system administrators accountable for the havoc they have wreaked.
This is not merely a paperwork war; this is a decisive battle for human rights, dignity, and the defence of democracy. This effort is essential to restore faith in the electoral process, proving that people's power is supreme. This is the real fight, and we must wage it both on the ground and in the public discourse.
