For more than four decades of his life, Khitish Burman, an Indian, lived a stateless existence in a small pocket of land in Bangladeshi territory.

These enclaves - 111 in Bangladesh and 51 in India - were home to some 50,000 people until July 2015 when both countries swapped control of land in each other’s territories.

Residents were asked to choose where they wanted to live and which nationality they would prefer.

Mr Burman and his extended family decided to leave their home and large garden and farm in Bangladesh and move across the border to Dinhata in Cooch Behar, West Bengal.

They were given citizenship papers and voter cards in recognition of their newfound Indian citizenship.

More than three years later, they continue to live in a camp made up tin-roofed tenements.The government provides the 58 families in the camp with free rice, lentils and cooking oil.

But Mr Burman was given no land, and has no sustainable source of a livelihood.

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Life is a struggle: sometimes he works on other people’s farms for 200 rupees (£2.20; $2.90) a day; other times he squats on the roadside and sells cheap clothes.

‘I am a farmer and I need to farm,’ he says.

Still, he stepped out this morning to cast his ballot.

Mr Burman, 51, says he voted purely because it was a right he had earned after being a stateless citizen for nearly five decades.

"For 48 years of my life I never got a chance to vote. I voted because voting makes be feel empowered. It is a right and gives me dignity. That is the only reason I voted."