A recent tragedy involving the death of a migrant worker from Jamalpur in Purba Bardhaman has ignited a fierce political debate in West Bengal. On Sunday, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leadership explicitly connected this death to the mounting anxiety surrounding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. This assertion, however, has been met with strong condemnation from opposition parties, who accuse the Trinamool of deliberately fostering panic among the populace.
The TMC wasted no time in politicizing the incident, releasing a social media statement that declared: “another precious life lost to @BJP4India’s politics of fear and hatred.”
The deceased, identified as Bimal Santra, had been working as a migrant laborer in Tamil Nadu. His body arrived back at his Jamalpur home on Saturday evening, prompting visits from Trinamool leaders, including the district president. In their poignant social media message, the party claimed, “And now, Bimal Santra, a migrant worker from Nabagram village of Jamalpur, Purba Bardhaman, who died of fear sparked by SIR. This is the human cost of an exercise designed to terrorise and displace. SIR is an instrument of intimidation, driving our people to despair, forcing them to question their citizenship and their right to belong. @BJP4India, your hands are stained with blood.” This strong statement implies that the BJP, whom Trinamool attributes with the ‘politics of fear’, is directly responsible for such tragic outcomes.
Bapi Santra, the son of the deceased, shared with reporters that his father had traveled to Tamil Nadu for work after losing his job locally. He explained that his father was admitted to the hospital when his health worsened, stating, “My father was under severe stress over his name in the voter list. He was hospitalised due to this. We contacted our MLA, who helped us a lot in this crisis.” This personal account provides a human element to the political accusations.
Interestingly, while Bapi Santra confirmed his father’s death in the hospital, Rabindranath Chatterjee, Trinamool’s district president and Katwa MLA, offered a different, more alarming detail, asserting that the migrant worker had died by suicide after consuming poison, further intensifying the narrative of distress.
This incident is not isolated, as the Trinamool has consistently linked several recent fatalities to the anxiety induced by the SIR process. They’ve cited the deaths of Pradeep Kar from Panihati and 95-year-old Khitish Majumder of Kotwali in Paschim Medinipur as similar cases. Trinamool general secretary Abhishek Banerjee recently paid a visit to Pradeep Kar’s family, demanding justice, and has announced that both he and party chairperson Mamata Banerjee will lead significant protests in Kolkata on November 4th, specifically targeting the SIR.
In response, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, and the CPI(M) have all fiercely criticized the Trinamool, accusing them of actively ‘fomenting fear’. BJP leader Keya Ghosh labeled the TMC’s actions as “vulture politics,” stressing that while every death is tragic, politicizing them is unacceptable. Ghosh specifically pointed out that Pradeep Kar, one of the deceased mentioned by TMC, had missing fingers but his name had consistently appeared on voter lists from 2002 to 2025. She warned the public against what she termed the Trinamool’s blatant attempts to politicize these deaths, even alleging that they were trying to ‘seize bodies’ to forcibly link them to the SIR controversy.
Echoing the BJP’s sentiments, Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy also publicly accused Mamata Banerjee and other Trinamool leaders of deliberately spreading panic among citizens regarding the electoral roll revision process.
Adding another layer to the controversy, a local Trinamool trade-union leader from Bamangachi, Tapas Dasgupta, was reportedly recorded instructing supporters to invoke the fear of “detention camps” among women. He was quoted saying, “If your name is removed from the voter list, you will be sent to a detention camp. We have to go to every house in the region and instill this fear in the female members of the family. We have to go into people’s kitchens and raise the issue of voter list in the conversation.” This recording further fueled accusations of the TMC intentionally creating fear and misinformation.