BJP workers in Assam say their names used to seek mass voter deletion – without their knowledge

For the last few days, Mridul Basumatary, a 28-year-old resident of Bhoroluwa Gaon, a village in Upper Assam's Lakhimpur district, has been trying to convince his neighbours that he has not filed any complaints against any resident of the village.

On January 18, 250 Bengal-origin Muslim residents of his village were informed that Basumatary, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing, had filed objections to the Election Commission, asking their names to be taken off the voter roll of Ranganadi Assembly constituency.

But Basumatary denied doing so. “How could I doubt the people of my own village?” he told Scroll. “They have been living here since my grandfather's time. I have known them since my childhood. I know all of them. We have grown up together. How can I doubt their citizenship?”

A special revision of electoral rolls is on in Assam, ahead of the Assembly elections this year.

The first draft of the state’s voter roll was published on December 27, after a door-to-door verification by booth level officers. This was followed by the claims and objections process, when voters get the opportunity to flag anyone they believe should not be on the voter list.

As Scroll reported on Thursday, in several Muslim-majority districts and areas of Assam, bulk objections have been filed against voters, seeking to strike their names off the electoral roll.

Strikingly, some of these complaints have been called out as “fake”. Scroll found at least seven people who denied having filed the complaints, even when their names, voter identity cards and phone numbers had been used in the objection forms.

Basumatary, a booth agent appointed by BJP, is one of them. “Someone forged my signature, used my phone number and voter ID number to file complaints against 250 people,” he told Scroll. “I was shocked.”

He has filed complaints with the North Lakhimpur deputy commissioner and the district election officer.

As Opposition parties accused the BJP of manipulating the revision process, two more people with links to the party – a party member and a booth level agent – told Scroll that their details were misused to file objections against voters without their knowledge. A fourth person accused a BJP worker of getting him to sign an objection form under false pretences.

Kamakhya Prasad Tasa, the BJP parliamentarian from Assam’s Kaziranga, said the Opposition parties were misleading the people. “Anyone can file complaints and objections. It is for the Election Commission to take a final call,” Tasa told Scroll. “Has any voter’s name be deleted yet? No. They are creating noise over a non-issue.”

A flood of fake complaints

Across the state, hundreds of Form 7 applications – the document signed by a voter seeking to strike others off the roll – are being called out as fake.

In addition to Basumatary, Scroll found three people in Ranganadi assembly constituency, whose phone numbers and voter identity cards were allegedly used without their knowledge to file objections against at least 200 people.

Nayan Mondal, a resident of Bishnupur village, said that over 150 people from his village had received notices that he had filed objections against their inclusion in the voter list. “I don’t know who made the complaints,” he told Scroll. “My EPIC [Election Photo Identity Card] number and phone number have been misused and forged. These people are my neighbours and they have been living here even before my birth.”

Another resident of Ranganadi assembly constituency, Nishikanta Das, too, told Scroll that his name, phone number and voter ID have been falsely used to make objections against the voters of Borbam Pathar and Singhara villages in Lakhimpur district. “Someone called me up and said that I have filed complaints and objections against Muslim voters,” Das, a cultivator, told Scroll. “I was shocked. Later, I filed written complaints to the election office stating that I have not asked to delete any voters.”

Even BJP workers and agents appear to be caught unawares by the scale of the objections.

Like Basumatary, Pinki Biswas Roy is a booth level agent appointed by the BJP in Phulbari village of Ranganadi constituency.

She claimed that her signature was forged and voter card misused to file objections against 53 people in her village. “I have not filed any objections and I am thinking of filing a written complaint,” the 24-year-old said.

In another constituency in Lakhimpur district, a BJP worker was named in a police complaint over filing fake objections against 500 Muslim voters, alleging that they had shifted.

“There are about 2,300 voters in my village, of whom about 500 Muslims received summons,” said Ubaidur Rahman, a resident of Ahmedpur Block village in Nowboicha constituency. “All the objections were made by someone named Dulal Hazarika.”

On January 20, Rahman filed a police complaint at Bihpuria police station, alleging misuse of electoral process. He said that he would persist till a first information report is filed in the case.

Hazarika told Scroll that he had not filed any objections. “I have received five- six phone calls in the last three days that I have filed objections against them," he said. “But that is not true.” However, he is yet to file a complaint about the misuse of his name.

BJP workers named in complaints

On January 16, Bishnu Das, a voter of Barhampur assembly constituency in Nagaon district filed a complaint with the Nagaon district election office.

He alleged that his name and Election Photo Identity Card number have been misused to file objections against 75 voters during the ongoing special revision.

In his complaint, Das accused a BJP worker of getting him to sign on a paper that “was written in English”. “When I asked about [the purpose of the form], he told me that I would receive an electric rickshaw from the BJP MLA Jitu Goswami [if I signed it],” he said in the complaint, seen by Scroll. “I am an illiterate person and cannot read or understand English. I was not informed that the paper was related to deletion of voters' names.”

He went on to say that he knew the 75 voters personally and had “never applied or agreed to delete their names from the voter list.”

Das alleged that the BJP worker threatened to get him arrested in a false case, if he asked too many questions.

A day before Das’s complaint, the Hojai unit of the All Assam Minorities Students’ Union, an influential students’ body representing both religious and linguistic minorities, had filed a police complaint against Das and two other complainants.

Between them, the three men named in the complaint had filed forms asking for the names of 142 voters of Barhampur constituency to be struck off the voter rolls.

On January 20, the Nagaon district administration issued a public notice that hearings in Barhampur constituency, as well as Nagaon-Batadraba and Raha assembly constituencies were being suspended after several complaints of fake objections.

The district administration took action on the basis of a complaint from Arfi Begum, a 64-year-old retired government employee of Nagaon district, who had received a notice asking her to appear for a hearing.

A 19-year-old booth level agent appointed by the BJP, Bishal Roy, had filed an objection against her inclusion in the electoral roll of Nagaon-Batadraba constituency, claiming that she had died.

Begum said she was shocked to receive the objection notice and filed a written complaint with the district election officer the same day. The next day, she attended the hearing with all relevant documents. Bishal Roy, she said, did not turn up and so the complaint was rejected. He told Begum that he had not filed the complaint.

Scroll’s calls to Roy’s phone went unanswered.

Begum said: “I have worked as a government employee for the last 35 years in the Nagaon district commissioner office. I am from Sivasagar and I belong to the Assamese Muslim community. Now I am being made a bohiragoto (outsider).”

In Biswanath district, Ahmed Ali, a 62-year-old maulana of Adaveti village, filed a police complaint against a BJP member Ranjan Adhikari after the latter filed an objection, saying that Ali had died and so his name should be struck off the rolls.

“He wanted to [delete my vote] by falsely showing me dead,” Ali said. “There are about 450 voters in my booth. But only 30 of us, all Muslims, were served notices.”

Adhikari, the BJP worker, refused to take Scroll’s calls.

Political parties object

Opposition leaders and representatives of the Bengal-origin Muslim community in Assam, too, alleged that the fake objection forms were an organised attempt to delete Muslim voters at the behest of the BJP.

They pointed to statements made by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and other BJP leaders, which they say have influenced election officials to manipulate the process.

Sarma has recently declared that preparing a correct voter list is "BJP’s agenda". "Is it not our responsibility to check that illegal Miyas' names are not included in the voter lists. Checking that our lands are not under the control of illegal Miyas is our duty. People had voted for us to do these works only," Sarma said.

Miya Muslims is a pejorative term used for Bengal-origin Muslims in Assam, who are often vilified as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh despite having roots in Assam that go back before Independence.

Debabrata Saikia, the leader of Opposition in Assam Assembly, in a letter to Election Commission alleged that “local BJP leaders are involved in the removal of the names of electors who were previously enrolled in the electoral rolls.”

“It is significant that many of the affected electors belong to the Muslim community, along with other indigenous residents who have lived in the area for generations,” he said.

Trinamool Congress MP Sushmita Dev on January 19 met Assam Chief Election Commissioner Anurag Goel and flagged the fact that false complaints by unknown and non-existent entities are being used to intimidate and harass genuine voters. “The complainants are being filed by people who don’t exist and don’t appear for the hearings,” Dev told Scroll. “It is targeted against the minorities and I suspect it is by the BJP.”