Kolkata: Two men allegedly committed suicide in separate incidents in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas and Jalpaiguri districts, with their families attributing the tragedies to severe “mental stress” arising from issues related to the final voter list published after the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls on February 28.
Rafiq Ali Gazi (44) was found hanging from the ceiling in his room at Gholpara in South 24 Parganas on Wednesday morning. According to police, Gazi’s name had figured under “adjudication” category in the revised electoral rolls, prompting his family to claim he suffered immense mental agony after discovering his name in that category.
In a similar incident Jalpaiguri town, 62-year-old momo seller Gouranga De was found hanging inside the washroom of his home on Tuesday morning, police said. His wife alleged that De grew deeply anxious after spotting his name under the “deleted” category in the final list, despite his submission of all necessary documents during the SIR process and attendance at a hearing for inclusion — his name did not figure in the 2002 voter rolls.
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) squarely blamed the Election Commission for De’s death.
In a post on X on Wednesday, the party said: “Heartbreaking tragedy strikes Bengal once more. A humble momo seller in Jalpaiguri, Gouranga De took his own life after the @ECISVEEP’s SIR mercilessly deleted his name from the voters’ list despite nearly four decades of faithful voting.”
TMC accused a “sinister BJP-ECI nexus” of orchestrating a deliberate scheme to strip voting rights from the poor, marginalised communities, and Bengal’s genuine electorate on an unprecedented scale. It pledged that the “Maa-Mati-Manush” government would pursue every legal channel to combat this injustice and uphold people’s rights and dignity.
The party has long maintained that over 110 such deaths occurred statewide due to “SIR stress” since November.
