ISLAMABAD: West Bengal’s voter-roll revision has erupted into a full-blown political confrontation and a suicide crisis, with the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accusing each other of electoral manipulation, according to Indian media reports.

At the center of the controversy is Form-7, the legal mechanism used to challenge a voter’s inclusion or seek deletion from electoral rolls, including in cases of death, relocation, duplication, or ineligibility.

Both parties argue that the form can be weaponized. According to the New Indian Express, TMC says BJP is filing Form-7 in bulk to strike-off genuine voters, especially in TMC-leaning areas, while BJP alleges TMC and local officials blocked submissions to prevent scrutiny of suspect entries.

Suicide crisis among poll workers

On Dec. 17, Al-Jazeera reported that at least 33 election officials had died since the launch of a criticized electoral-roll revision in November 2025, noting that many deaths were by suicide. Victims’ families and colleagues have linked the cases to extreme workload and pressure.

In Bihar, at least two BLOs (booth-level officers) died during the verificationof the electoral rolls.

On Nov. 9, five days after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was announced in a dozen other Indian states and federal territories, Namita Hansda, a 50-year-old rural health worker, died of a stroke while she was on duty in West Bengal’s East Burdwan district.

Her husband, Madhab Hansda, blamed the SIR workload for her untimely death.

In a separate incident, on Nov. 22, Rinku Tarafdar, a 53-year-old biology teacher recruited as a BLO, was found dead at her residence in Nadia district of West Bengal.

In her two-page suicide note, Tarafdar blamed the Election Commission of India.

“I do not support any political party, but I cannot handle this inhumane pressure anymore”, she wrote, adding that she was threatened with an “administrative process” if she failed to do the required work.

Crisis deepens, matter moves to courts

The conflict between TMC and the BJP intensified further on Jan. 19, the deadline for Form-7 submissions, when clashes were reported across multiple districts around election offices.

BJP leaders alleged forms were snatched and vandalized, claiming their workers were stopped from filing objections in places such as Kalna, Barasat, and Lalbagh. TMC leaders countered that the BJP’s “mass objections” amounted to a deletion drive, according to the ‘Deccan Herald’, a local newspaper.

By the evening, more than 56,000 Form-7 applications had been filed with the Election Commission, according to figures cited in Times of India.

In the aftermath, the Bengal BJP asked the Election Commission for a seven-day extension, citing alleged violence and obstruction at the submission center, reported The New Indian Express.

On Jan. 20, the dispute moved decisively to the courts.

The Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to publish/display the names of voters flagged under “logical discrepancies” in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision, a category reported as about 12.5 million in one account and nearly 14 million in another, according to India Today.

The court also directed that lists be made available at the local administrative level and granted an additional 10 days for voters to submit documents to validate their inclusion.

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West Bengal voter-roll revision exercise turns into street battles, suicide crisis