Odisha polls: Massive exercise underway to remove Bangladeshis from voters’ list

Bhubaneshwar, Sep 17: The Odisha government has begun a major exercise to take out the names of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from the voters' list. The exercise is being conducted ahead of the assembly elections scheduled to be held next year. Officials said that with the Election Commission undertaking the revision of the voters' list, the district administrations have begun disenfranchising suspected Bangladeshis whose names figure on the list.

In the Mahakalpada tehsil alone, the names of 137 Bangladeshis have been found. These persons have been removed from the list. The revision process in the state would continue until September 27.

As per official records, nearly 3,987 Bangladeshis have been staying illegally in Odisha. Out of these, there are 1,649 who have been staying in the coastal Kendrapara district. 1,112 have been found in Paradip and Jagatsinghpur.

Of the 3,987 infiltrators, 1,551 foreign nationals from 362 families living in Mahakalpada Tehsil of Kendrapara district were served deportation notice in 2005. However, the deportation move has been kept on hold following intervention by the then union government.