SIR fears: Ranaghat man allegedly commits suicide

A day before the publication of the draft list of Special Intensive Revision (SIR), tomorrow, a 60-year-old person from Ranaghat in Nadia, committed suicide on Monday fearing that his name will be struck off from the voters’ list.

The person has been identified as Sushanta Biswas. His family members said for the past few days he was under acute stress that his name would be dropped. The situation worsened when some BJP leaders warned that names of millions in Bengal would be dropped. “Such statements created panic instead of clarity; insecurity instead of confidence,” Trinamul Congress leadership said.

Advertisement

Trinamul Congress in its X handle wrote: “Voting is not a favour granted by the state, it is a constitutional right. Yet today ordinary citizens are being pushed into anxiety and despair over whether they will be allowed in the voter list. When a democratic process begins to terrorise citizens instead of empowering them, something has gone fundamentally wrong.”

The party leaders alleged that this fear is manufactured in some states. “Is this really about electoral reform or about intimidation because BJP knows it cannot win Bengal democratically? @bjp4india needs to understand, that a democracy that rules through fear is no democracy at all.”