In Burrabazar, absent, duplicate voters prompt BLOs to paste notices on doors
Times of India | 13 November 2025
Kolkata: Booth-level officers, distributing SIR enumeration forms in the Burrabazar-Posta area, were confronted with an array of problems—absent voters, addresses that could not be traced and residents with more than one voter ID cards.
EC officials suspect at least 30%-40% voter cards will be scrapped in these areas at the end of the process.
TOI trailing BLOs in the central business district for over two hours on Wednesday found them pasting nine notices on closed doors, informing them that they had come to hand out SIR forms but none from the houses was around to accept them. At 205, Maharshi Debendra Road off Strand Road, where 19 voters were listed, only an abandoned godown stood on a ground with an iron door.
Maitrayee Das, the BLO making the rounds of Ward 21 in the Shyampukur Assembly constituency, said, "This is not the only address.
I visited a few others, where I could not find any resident. In some cases, even the neighbours couldn't recognise the names on the list. So after visiting those houses multiple times, I had no other option but to stick the notice on the doors."
Similar problems are faced by BLOs visiting Jorasanko, Jorabagan and Strand Road in Burrabazar areas.
Such an address was Om Bhavan at 54/5, Strand Road, where several voters were found missing. In one form, where the photo of a woman was supposed to be, came with a photo of a man.
At 201, Maharshi Debendra Sarani, which had 250 voters enlisted, most were untraceable. But some of those names also appeared in two nearby parts.
A BLO said, "A family has voter ID cards both here and in Bihar. When I asked which one they wanted to keep, they told me to cut out their names here.
These things would not have come to light had this exercise not been held." Other BLOs, too, found 10-15 members staying in one room here, who had their voter ID cards in Bihar, UP, Jharkhand and Odisha but also another one from these Kolkata addresses. Subha Bhattacharjee, supervisor of Ward 21, said, "A major portion of the population in this area, especially labourers, come from other states.
There are many with two voter ID cards, and they are being asked which one they want to keep.
For those who cannot be found, our BLOs have served notices on them."
In another part of Burrabazar, some BLOs found the same voter's name enlisted in two different parts. Sanntanu Debnath, assistant ERO of Ward 21 of Shyampukur Assembly, said, "We are trying to make flawless verification by reaching out to every voter. BLOs here are facing more challenges than those working in other parts of the city due to the demography of this area. Some BLOs had to visit the same address multiple times over the past seven days just to hand out the enumeration forms.
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The old residences of Sovabazar and Girish Park also threw up similar problems even as verification started in some places.