The Kaliachak-II BDO office in Mothabari looks the same as any other block development office in West Bengal: a two-storey building, draped in white and blue.
Two BSF personnel were guarding the main entrance. Inside, thousands of papers with the names of deleted voters hung from a rope.
Who would have imagined that this BDO office, in an apparently calm hamlet dotted with large mango gardens, wheat and maize farmlands, and brick kilns, would hog the limelight before a national audience, although for all the wrong reasons.
In a shocking incident on April 1, an angry mob held hostage seven judicial officers involved in the SIR adjudication process for several hours at this office and later attacked them to protest over the deletion of names in the Special Intensive Revision exercise of electoral rolls in West Bengal before the Assembly elections this month.
Sitting inside a room on the ground floor of the BDO office, MD Maruf Ali, a contractual staffer, was working at a desktop.
“That day, the number of people protesting outside the office kept increasing as the day progressed. They were shouting, asking why their names had been deleted from the voters’ list after the adjudication process. Even I could not enter the office in the afternoon. The mob did not allow anybody to go outside. I was very tense about my colleagues inside. By evening, the situation was out of control,” 33-year-old Ali told businessline.
Two days after the grave incident, the alleged mastermind behind the violence, Mofakkerul Islam, an AIMIM (All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) activist and lawyer, was arrested by West Bengal Police. West Bengal CID has so far arrested 35 people, including Islam.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which has been probing the incident in the Bangladesh-bordering and minority-dominated Malda district, detained seven people, including Sayem Chowdhury, the Congress candidate for the Mothabari Assembly constituency. Chowdhury has now been released.
“The situation may seem normal now, but there is a strong undercurrent of tension. The police and NIA team are interrogating and detaining people for their investigation. In a lot of areas, young male family members have left Mothabari due to fear,” informed Ali, whose own name got deleted from the voters’ list during the SIR adjudication process.
“It has become a major prestige issue for me. I have worked during the SIR process. To my utter surprise, my name and my wife's names were deleted. However, my parents’ names are there in the list. My wife and I have applied before the tribunal,” Ali added.
In the Kaliachak-II block, under the Mothabari Assembly constituency, around 75 per cent of the people are Muslims. Only around 25 per cent of the voters, whose names had been under adjudication, could make it to the final list after the hearing by the judicial officers took place.
The Muslim-dominated Malda district, which has 12 Assembly constituencies, saw around 2.39 lakh deletions during the judicial scrutiny.
“In my six-member family, four names were deleted during the adjudication process. We were all born here. My father and grandfather were sons of this soil. Are we not the citizens of this country? How can you describe the case where children’s names are there in the voters list, but not their parents’?” wondered 60-year-old Sheikh Mujibur.
The Trinamool Congress and Congress stronghold Mothabari Assembly constituency, which will be going to the elections on April 23, are facing a triangular contest. The ruling Trinamool Congress in the State, which won the seat in the last Assembly polls, has fielded a new candidate, Nazrul Islam. Islam will be fighting against Congress’ Sayem Chowdhury and BJP’s Nibaran Ghosh.
“Before the Mothabari gherao incident, it seemed like the Muslim vote would be divided between Trinamool Congress and Congress. But after this incident, there is a high chance that minority votes will be consolidated for the Trinamool as its supremo and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is taking on the BJP and the Election Commission for the massive voter deletion,” said Auliya Khan, a voter of this constituency.
However, Trinamool Congress may face some anti-incumbency issues. “Trinamool had proposed to set up new hospitals and schools here. Nothing has happened so far. Only party workers’ clout and wealth have grown,” rued Ganesh Chandra Mandal, a local shopkeeper and also a voter of the constituency.
Published on April 13, 2026