Assam woman gets voting right back 9 years after proving citizenship
The absence of her name from the voter list meant Anjali Roy was denied all government facilities, food security benefits, Aadhar and bank account
In 2012, a Foreigners Tribunal in Assam’s Silchar issued Anjali Roy, 60, and her brother notices for being suspected undocumented immigrants, saying they could not produce valid documents for police verification. She said her brother could not handle the humiliation and died by suicide, making Roy more determined to prove her Indian identity. Roy fought a successful legal battle for three years to prove her Indian identity in 2015. But she would get tied up in bureaucratic red tape for another nine years to get voting right back.
Roy’s name was erased from the voter list after the tribunal’s notice in 2012. She said she got the certificate of her Indian identity and pleaded with election officials to include her name on the voter list ahead of the 2016 assembly elections. “I appealed to them to include my name but they kept me waiting...before the 2018 panchayat election, 2019 general elections, and 2021 assembly elections but they kept asking me to wait,” she said.
The absence of her name from the voter list meant Roy was denied all government facilities. “I was denied food security benefits. I did not get Aadhar and could not open a bank account,” she said.
Lawyer Anil Dey, who represented Roy, said she had a citizenship card issued in 1956 in her father’s name.
Roy said the family kept suffering. “In 2022, my mother got a notice over suspect citizenship at 83. I had to fight for almost a decade to get my right to vote even after proving that I was not an undocumented immigrant,” she said.
She said she felt at one point that her brother made the right decision to end his life. “It looked like the government mechanism did not want to accept me as Indian,” she said. Roy added except for her husband, all her family members were denied Aadhar cards. “What was our fault? I was close to killing myself but I could not do it because it would have created additional pressure on my kids,” she said.
Social activist Kamal Chakraborty said he was shocked to know that Roy wanted to apply for citizenship under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act whose rules were notified this year. “...Her family did not immigrate from Bangladesh and it would be impossible for them to show any document of that country. When I contacted them, they said that there is no other option for them.” Chakraborty said that the election officials said that the list for the 2024 general elections has been prepared and her name can only be included before any upcoming poll. A by-election allowed her to reregister her name as a voter.