West Bengal man, teaching in UK, cancels flight after SIR’s knockout punch

KOLKATA: Manchester-based lecturer Mehebub Sahana desperately wanted to vote in this assembly election and booked tickets for himself, his wife and their 18-month daughter. But he cancelled his trip after his name got deleted from the electoral roll.

Sahana is a voter of Khandaghosh constituency under East Burdwan. Not only Sahana, the names of his father, brother and sister have also been deleted.

The 36-year-old Leverhulme fellow and a lecturer of Geographic Information Systems at the University of Manchester was in his village last Dec and filled up the enumeration form. "I submitted my passport as instructed by the BLO. My father has voted in the elections since 1982. His name was there on the 2002 voter list as ‘Kuddus Sahana' whereas all his documents had his name as ‘Abdul Kuddus Sahana'. So he changed the name in his voter ID card in 2024. We were called for a hearing due to this mismatch, which was stated as logical discrepancy. They attended the hearing physically whereas I attended it through video call. Each one of us submitted all documents. My family has been living here for five generations. My grandfather, Abdul Khalilar Rahaman Sahana (1896-1992), was a well-respected figure in the village and was also actively involved in social service, contributing to both the Khandaghosh primary and secondary high school. But when the final list came, we found our names under adjudication and then they were deleted on April 5," said Sahana.

"I desperately wanted to vote this time, considering the ongoing debates around native and non-native issues. I also felt it was important since I couldn't vote in 2021 due to the pandemic. So I booked tickets for April but cancelled it after names were deleted and amidst uncertainty whether we will be able to vote or not," he added.

Sahana and his wife have been living in the UK since 2019 and are qualified to apply for a British passport, but they have decided to keep their Indian passport. "We have a desire to return to our village, to our roots in the future so we did not give up on our Indian passports. The deletion of the names has caused a deep scar that cannot be expressed in words. I feel a dual vulnerability, facing anti-immigrant rhetoric in the West while being rejected by my own country despite having deep roots and all documents," Sahana rued.

While working at the University of Manchester, Sahana has received several prestigious fellowships, including the Leverhulme Trust Fellowship. He has also led a bilateral project funded by the British Council and the Indian Council of Social Science Research on flood management in Bengal. He worked closely with the Uttar Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority during the pandemic, contributing to initiatives such as the Heatwave Action Plan. He studied at a school and college in Burdwan. He did his master's and PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia and had been a research assistant in JNU.

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