Bengal, Tamil Nadu to Vote Amid Spectre of Voter Exclusion; Silent on Complaints Against Modi, EC Issues Notice to Congress Chief
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April 22, 2026
Sidharth Bhatia
All of Tamil Nadu will vote in a few hours. West Bengal votes in the first phase on Thursday.
The Election Commission issued a notice to Congress chief Mallkarjun Kharge for calling Narendra Modi a “terrorist”. The notice came in response to a complaint by the BJP saying it was a violation of the Model Code of Conduct. The EC has asked Kharge to reply within 24 hours. The Commission’s swift response to the complaint stood out in comparison to the lack of information about its action, if any, on the complaints filed against Modi for his ‘address to the nation’ which had been filed by Opposition parties and a group of around 700 people, including academicians and activists. Kharge, who made his comments in a press conference, later clarified that he meant that Modi was “terrorising people and political parties”.
There are many stories on the travesty wrought upon the Indian electoral system with the EC’s opaque ways in West Bengal especially. But here is a small statistic that illustrates the extent of the suffering. Having decided to go ahead with the election schedule despite pushing 27 lakh voters into the grey zone of ‘under adjudication’, the Supreme Court last week magnanimously ordered the EC to ensure that those voters whose appeals are cleared by the various appellate tribunals in the state be added to the voting list. Well, as of now, the appellate tribunals have considered the cases of only 138 deleted voters. And guess how many they have reinstated? 136 of them.
Stories of voter exclusion will haunt India’s democracy for a long time to come. Aparna Bhattacharya writes that last year, Samserganj in
