Kolkata: While the new Bharatiya Janata Party government in Bengal has stressed that it will continue to provide benefits to recipients of Trinamool Congress-era welfare schemes, minister Agnimitra Paul noted to reporters a day ago that those who have been struck off the voter rolls in the special intensive revision will not be receiving benefits. However, those who have applied under the Citizenship Amendment Act and are awaiting tribunal adjudication of their deletions from the voter rolls will be eligible, Paul clarified to The Wire a day after her remarks to the contrary had sparked fear.

Paul, who has taken charge as minister of women and children's development, told reporters on May 11 that the government has decided to do an assessment of names which have been deleted from the rolls.

"We will do an analysis before June 1. Those whose names have been struck off, if they are receiving [money under the schemes] then they are not supposed to. Someone who is dead is not supposed to get it. Someone who is not a citizen of this country, they are not supposed to get it. So we will do this analysis. Those whose names have been struck off, how many of them have been getting Lakshmir Bhandar, their names will be removed," Paul said in Bengali.

Lakshmir Bhandar was the Mamata Banerjee government's flagship scheme, under which women received Rs 1,500 through direct benefit transfer.

The BJP promises to bring Annapurna Bhandar, under which it claims to give eligible women Rs 3,000 per month.

When she spoke to reporters a day ago, Paul had added that chief minister Suvendu Adhikari has also made one more stipulation. "Those who have applied under the CAA [Citizenship (Amendment) Act] and those whose names have gone to the tribunals will be left out for the time being," Paul had said.

When The Wire reached out to the minister for clarification, Paul wrote over WhatsApp, "Tribunal and CAA is eligible."

Under the Bengal SIR, the Election Commission (EC) removed some 91 lakh names from the state's voter rolls. The inclusion of over 27 lakh people among those who were flagged for so-called ‘logical discrepancies’ remained undecided when the state went to polls anyway on April 23 and 29.

These 27 lakh have had to plead their case at 19 appellate tribunals across the state. Ahead of the elections, a little over 1,600 people were heard.

Prior to the election the BJP had championed the SIR as a means to remove, among others, ‘illegal Bangladeshis’ from the voter rolls. While Paul in her remarks to the press echoed this sentiment when she said “those who are not citizens of this country” must not receive payouts, it is still not clear exactly how many foreign nationals the revision exercise has swept up.

The fact that CAA applicants are going to be within the ambit of the welfare schemes is interesting as these groups – comprising Bangladesh-origin Hindu settlers – are some of the BJP's biggest vote banks. The government has not said how many people have received citizenship under the CAA yet but Bangaon MP Shantanu Thakur had told The Wire earlier this year that 76,000 people had applied in the preceding seven months and that roughly 1,500 were successful.

Note: This report, first published at 1.24 am on May 13, 2026, has been updated and republished at 11.57 am on the same day. It was again updated at 12.39 pm on the same day with minister Agnimitra Paul's comments.

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