After a number of deaths by suicide in Bengal - allegedly over the special intensive revision of voter lists before next year's Assembly election - workers from the ruling Trinamool Congress were seen distributing copies of the electoral roll from 2002, the base year for this update.
The copies are being distributed to people in the state's North 24 Parganas district, which is home to a large number of people who migrated from Bangladesh after the Partition.
And the copies are being distributed to people whose name is already on the list, as a way of countering what the BJP's rivals believe is 'collusion with the Election Commission to systematically disenfranchise lakhs of voters who might otherwise vote for them'.
Prabir Saha, Chairman of the local civic body administered by the Trinamool, joined party workers in distributing copies, and assured people no legitimate citizen would be affected.
Saha claimed people in his neighbourhood are panicking over the impending SIR.
"Chief Minister (Mamata Banerjee) directed us to be with the people at this time... so we are going to each house and giving a copy of the 2002 voter list, in which their names are there."
"This is because they will not face any problem in the days to come..." he said, referring to controversy over a voter list revision in Bihar, which votes next week, that saw around 38 lakh names struck off the roll for reasons from their being dead to being illegally added to the list.
"Over the last two-three days we have seen people reaching out, seeking documents like residential certificates. They were under fear due to the SIR," he said, referring in this case to a row over the poll panel initially disallowing the widely used Aadhaar as a viable ID.
The Supreme Court later directed the EC to accept the Aadhaar and even the poll panel's own identification card as proof of an individual being a bona fide Indian citizen and voter.
One of North 24 Parganas' permanent residents, Sudip Sen, told NDTV, "My family and I don't have any concern... we have all the needed documents. But some of our relatives and friends are concerned as they do not have all the documents. Now that we have the 2002 list, it will help them to get over the SIR anxiety."
Suman Sarkar, a middle-aged techie and another resident, expressed his anguish.
"SIR is being done to create fear among the people. This fear factor is suddenly being created to divert common people's attention... so common people do not look to the extreme inflation which is going on and their daily life struggle. SIR is being done hurriedly we feel."
Recently senior Trinamool leader Abhishek Banerjee, the Chief Minister's nephew and party No 2, spoke to the people of North 24 Parganas and said, "... rest assured. If they exclude even one Bengali person from the voter list through SIR and NRC (the National Register of Citizens, an equally contentious initiative of the central government), then we will gherao (surround) the Election Commission office in Delhi with one lakh people and teach them a lesson."
Not to be outdone, the Bengal BJP unit has organised hundreds of 'SIR camps', particularly in border districts, to assist people in this regard. These camps were already functioning to register people under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The party's election-in-charge, Bhupendra Yadav, last week directed the camps to also address SIR-related issues.
The Bengal SIR kicked off Thursday. The enumeration phase, in which poll officials will go house-to-house to verify documents, will begin on November 4 and the exercise will end, with the publication of a final and updated voter list, on February 7, months before the election.
