Bengal SIR: Cricketer Richa Ghosh, minister, MLAs 'under adjudication'

The Trinamool Congress on Sunday accused the Election Commission of India (ECI) of carrying out what it described as “silent invisible rigging” during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, alleging that the names of Indian cricketer Richa Ghosh, West Bengal minister Md Ghulam Rabbani and several party MLAs have been placed under the “under adjudication” category in the final voter list.

In posts on X, the party claimed that Ghosh — a member of India’s 2025 ICC Women’s World Cup-winning squad — was marked “under adjudication” in the voter list published on Saturday, 28 February.

“The farce of @BJP4India and @ECISVEEP's silent invisible rigging reaches new lows of absurdity. A World Cup-winning star like Richa Ghosh, Bengal's pride, India's hero… has now been placed ‘under adjudication’ in the final electoral rolls,” the TMC said.

The party said the 22-year-old wicketkeeper-batter from Siliguri, who represented India on the global stage, was now facing what it termed “humiliating scrutiny”.

“She is forced to endure this humiliating scrutiny, her name flagged, her voter status questioned, her democratic right dangling by a thread in this voter purge,” the statement said.

Drawing parallels between prominent figures and ordinary citizens affected by the revision exercise, the party asked: “When even celebrities and national icons can be arbitrarily targeted, questioned, and subjected to this degrading process, what hope for the common Bengali voter?”

The TMC alleged that four sitting MLAs — Md Ghulam Rabbani, Rafiqur Rahaman, Toraf Hossain Mandal and Swati Khandoker — have also been placed under the same category.

It further claimed that Birbhum Zilla Parishad Sabhadhipati Kajal Sheikh and his mother were similarly flagged, while Naihati Municipality councillor Sushanta Sarkar and his mother were “deleted outright” from the rolls.

In a tragic case flagged by the party, Mohammad Tahir, booth-level officer of booth 69 in ward 7 of Kamarhati, succumbed to a cardiac arrest allegedly triggered by extreme work pressure during the SIR. "And the ultimate insult? His own name was marked 'under adjudication'. The very guardian of the SIR process on the ground, himself branded a suspect, hounded by suspicion until it killed him," the party posted on X.

According to the party, several other functionaries have faced issues ranging from deletion to adjudication following the SIR process. “This is systematic humiliation engineered to disenfranchise, to silence, to erase Bengal's voice one name at a time,” the party said.

The Election Commission has not yet responded to the allegations.

With PTI inputs