Booth with 842 voters goes missing from 2002 SIR rolls
Times of India | 1 November 2025
Kolkata: All 842 people who were registered as voters in booth number 159 at Guma in North 24 Parganas' Ashoknagar, are missing from the 2002 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) rolls now available on the Election Commission website, sparking widespread panic.
The booth, too, has disappeared from the list.
All these voters claim they were not only enlisted in the 2002 electoral rolls, but also voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The SIR 2002 rolls available on the EC website are the base document against which the SIR will be done in Bengal. To make matters worse, 71 names from booth 61 in the same belt are also missing from the EC portal.
Abul Kalam Mondal, a resident of Churi Para, was among the first to flag the issue.
"My name was there in the last Lok Sabha election roll, and I even cast my vote at booth 159 at Guma ‘Shishu Siksha Kendra'. But now, I can't even find my booth. My name and that of my family are missing from the 2002 electoral rolls. We've contacted officials at the local panchayat office, but no one has been able to clarify anything. We're extremely anxious as we might be branded Bangladeshis," Mondal said.
Locals fear that the unexplained disappearance of voter data could jeopardise their citizenship status and voting rights.
"We are terrified after learning about this," said Kesto Ghosh of Ghosh Para. "How can the names of so many voters vanish mysteriously? We don't even know how to re-enrol ourselves. No one has given us any clear instructions," Ghosh added. Guma, which is close to the Bangladesh border, is around 38 kilometres from Kolkata.
District administration sources confirmed that the Election Commission's portal currently shows no record of any of the 842 voters of booth 159, which covered areas like Churi Para and Ghosh Para.
The booth, which had 436 voters in 2002, saw the number rising to 842 after delimitation. But it has now disappeared from the EC's SIR rolls uploaded on its portal. "Nor has the list of voters from that booth merged with any neighbouring booths of the Ashoknagar assembly constituency, as far as I know," said Narayan Goswami, North 24 Parganas Zilla Parishad Sabhadhipati and MLA of Ashoknagar.
Goswami lodged a formal complaint with the EC.
Local panchayat officials are also baffled. Jasmine Sahaji, pradhan (chief) of Guma-I gram panchayat, alleged that her husband Sadiq Sahaji's name, which appeared between serial numbers 343 and 414 of booth number 61 on the 2002 list, has vanished from the database. "This is sheer negligence on the part of the EC," she said.
CEO, West Bengal, Manoj Agarwal, in a statement on X, said, "As per Section 32 of The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, District Election Officer is the custodian of the Electoral Roll of the district. Report has been sought from District Election Officers of North 24 Parganas and Coochbehar in this regard." DEO refers to the district magistrates.