AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday criticised the West Bengal government’s ration cards verification drive linked to the SIR exercise, questioning the decision to connect welfare benefits with voter roll status. The state’s Civil Supplies Department announced that it would mark the ration cards of such individuals as “inactive.”
“Why should access to ration or welfare depend on whether your name is on the voter list? What is the point of Aadhaar authentication if the voter roll is being used as the deciding factor?” he said on X.
He claimed that the move looks like an attempt to make life harder for the poor, particularly women, scheduled castes, and Muslims, rather than the voter verification process.
“Government schemes are not rewards for voters. They are meant for all eligible citizens. This move looks less like verification and more like an attempt to cut beneficiary numbers while making life harder for the poorest people, especially women, SCs, and Muslims,” he said.
Furthermore, he said government schemes are the right of every eligible citizen.
“The government is acting as if these schemes are Prince Suvendu’s personal charity. They are not. They are funded by public money and are the right of every eligible citizen,” he said.
The statement comes ahead of the statement of West Bengal’s food and supplies department on June 4 in order to conduct a statewide verification exercise to identify and delete “ineligible beneficiaries” from the PDS.
The official order stated that the exercise will cover ration card holders whose names were deleted or were ineligible during the SIR process. The exercise is scheduled to be completed by June 15.
Officials said that the categories included persons who were marked absent, shifted, dead, or duplicated (ASDD) electors and persons whose applications were rejected or those deleted after adjudications. It also included electors identified as ASDD during the distribution of voter information slips during the 2026 Assembly elections.
The department also said that beneficiaries who have filed appeals before the SIR Tribunal or those who have submitted applications under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will remain active in the
However, the department clarified that beneficiaries who have filed appeals before the SIR Tribunal or have submitted applications under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) would have their names on the database.
