“Voter List Scam: Illegal Immigration Fuels Bengal’s Political Crisis”

Poonam Sharma
Illegal immigration and the manipulation of voter lists in West Bengal have again spawned a nationwide controversy. Recent reports, including one by Dainik Jagran, suggest that foreign nationals, including two Pakistani women allegedly married in Bihar, succeeded in getting local documentation and securing government jobs with the help of locals while being non-citizens of India. These reflect a growing concern: an entrenched ecosystem that, critics argue, enables and protects illegal immigrants like Rohingyas, Bangladeshis, and Pakistan-origin individuals, who can thereby meld seamlessly into India’s demographic and administrative fabric.

An Ecosystem Encouraging Illegal Settlements?

Security agencies and political commentators have long warned of a converging political–bureaucratic network in large pockets of West Bengal, which works to provide shelter, documentation, and, in some cases, electoral identity to illegal migrants. Motives—political, or demographic engineering for electoral gains—are often combined with economic ones, with illegal settlers building informal labour networks driving local economies.

The fear expressed is not merely about demographic shifts but national security. Allowing undocumented foreign nationals to obtain identity documents, government jobs, and voting rights directly erodes the integrity of governance systems. Worse, it produces pockets of influence where law enforcement becomes hesitant and political patronage dictates administrative action.

The Kapil Sibal Controversy: Aadhaar, Citizenship and the Legal Debate

The controversy turned political when the senior advocate and politician Kapil Sibal asked why an Aadhaar card is not acceptable as the valid proof of citizenship for verification of voter identity. For this, he got instant rebuttal from the legal experts, including Suryakant Tripathi, who said that Aadhaar cannot be, and is not, a proof of citizenship by virtue of Supreme Court judgments and UIDAI guidelines. Aadhaar is only a document related to identity and residence-it cannot ascertain nationality.

This is the legal distinction at the heart of the voter list crisis. Illegal immigrants often obtain an Aadhaar through local networks, which lets them penetrate deeper into the system. Records are then difficult to correct legally and administratively once such people start turning up on voter rolls.

Manipulated Records and the ‘Dead Voter’ Syndrome

Another serious allegation is the manipulation of village vanśāvalis, the traditional genealogical records, and the misuse of filled forms without verification. Local reports say that in several areas, Bangladeshi migrants allegedly inserted their names in voter lists by misusing the identities of deceased villagers, creating mismatched ages and false family linkages.

This leads to a chain reaction.

Age discrepancies in electoral rolls

Mismatched documents

Conflicting addresses

Duplicate voter entries

Missing or manipulated birth records

Election officials acknowledge that identifying genuine voters becomes much more complicated when records are distorted at the village or ward level.

Shift in Power: State Governments Removed from Data Entry

The other major development has been the Election Commission of India’s move to centralize voter list data management. With states no longer responsible for entering or verifying data, political actors can no longer influence local bureaucrats to include questionable names. According to reports, the West Bengal government, particularly the TMC, is unsettled over this; after all, the party stands accused of having benefited electorally from migrant populations in border districts.

Mamata Banerjee’s Fear Factor?

Several political commentators argue that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s recent aggressive stance against the Election Commission stems from the fear that a sanitised voter roll could erode TMC’s traditional support base. The party has repeatedly called the new verification process “anti-poor”, “anti-minority”, and “politically motivated”, while critics insist that the pushback is an attempt to shield illegal settlers who have been voting for years.

Even the UPA chairperson has been dragged into the debate at the national level, with allegations that political interests across the opposition spectrum are invested in maintaining voter lists replete with dubious entries.

The Scale of the Problem

Reports from the border districts of North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, and Malda to urban centers indicate thousands of cases where:

Papers were allegedly snatched or replaced.

Fake identities were fabricated.

Citizenship documents were forged.

Benefits under various central and state schemes were granted to foreign nationals.

Such systemic subversion of voter lists threatens the essential underlying principle of democratic legitimacy-only citizens can elect governments.

Conclusion:

A Call for Transparency and Accountability The voter list controversy in West Bengal mirrors the deep vulnerabilities within India’s citizenship verification and electoral systems. As accusations are traded between political parties, the larger threat remains the same-illegal immigration, unchecked documentation fraud, and politicization of demographic changes that can destabilize both governance and national security. The way ahead lies through transparency, robust verification, Centre-state coordination, and a non-partisan approach to citizenship rolls. It is only then that India can ensure the integrity of its voters’ lists—and, by implication, the credibility of its democracy.