Opposition parties and civil society organisations in Bengal have formed a joint forum to challenge deletions from the electoral rolls and seek answers from the Election Commission, the Supreme Court and the state government. The All Bengal Joint Forum to Safeguard the Right to Vote was announced at Press Club Kolkata on Saturday, with representatives of the Trinamool Congress, CPM, Congress and CPI(ML) Liberation joining the initiative.
The forum plans to hold a mass convention on November 21, bringing together opposition parties, social organisations and voters whose names have allegedly been deleted during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. Speakers at the meeting described the immediate objective as restoring voting rights rather than negotiating an electoral alliance.
The development brings together parties that remain political rivals in Bengal. CPM Calcutta district secretary Kallol Majumdar said a joint forum and an electoral pact were different arrangements and should not be treated as equivalent. Trinamool spokesperson Vasundhara Goswami said elections were a separate question and that the platform’s immediate priority was the restoration of voting rights.
The dispute has a direct bearing on the state’s civic election process. In late October, the Trinamool, CPM and Congress jointly petitioned state election commissioner Krishna Gupta, seeking a postponement of civic polls scheduled for next month until the revised electoral rolls are published in January 2027. The memorandum was signed by Trinamool MP Saugata Roy, CPM central committee member Samik Lahiri and Bengal Congress president Subhankar Sarkar, along with representatives of other non-BJP parties and civil society organisations.
The forum’s conveners said it was seeking “answers and accountability” on six questions related to the roll-revision exercise. Prasenjit Bose, a convener, chairperson of the Congress’s Bengal unit committee on the revision and a petitioner in the Supreme Court, said the questions were directed at the court, the Election Commission and the Bengal government.
Former Bengal chief electoral officer Jawhar Sircar said he had written to the current chief electoral officer, Neelam Meena, seeking clarification on whether voters whose appeals were pending before revision tribunals could seek reinclusion through Form 6. He also asked who had ordered 16 lakh appeals against the inclusion of names, saying he had received neither a reply nor an acknowledgement.
The proposed convention is also facing logistical difficulty. Farmer activist Avik Saha said organisers were struggling to find a venue but would hold the event either indoors or in the open. Rights activist Sujato Bhadra and Bangla Pokkho co-founder Garga Chatterjee also addressed the gathering, framing the roll-revision dispute as a question of democratic rights and institutional accountability.
The forum’s next public milestone is the November 21 convention, while the status of the proposed civic-poll schedule and the publication of revised electoral rolls remain central issues in the ongoing dispute.
