Nearly 60 per cent of voters are missing from the various railway colonies under the Asansol North Assembly constituency during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Booth Level Officers (BLOs) are conducting the exercise, but with only a few days left, chances of these names being added to the draft voter list appear slim.
Political parties suspect the main reasons to be the shifting and death of retired railway employees after superannuation, as well as the large-scale demolition of illegal encroachments in 2006. In November that year, the then Divisional Railway Manager of Asansol, Ajay Kumar Rawal, initiated a drive that demolished thousands of unauthorised settlements on railway township land, evacuating inhabitants who had lived there for more than 50 years. Many of those residents were listed in the 2002 electoral roll but cannot be traced during the 2025 SIR field visits.
As per the 2021 Assembly polls, Asansol North had 2,76,000 voters. The Railway Township occupies about half of Asansol city’s area, though population density is higher outside the railway zone. The township houses the railway station, tracks, clubs, workshops, car sheds, parks, the DRM office, DSRP office, gymnasium, community halls and schools.
Around 16,000 people are employed under the Asansol Division, with nearly half based in Asansol town. Their families mostly reside in railway quarters and bungalows.
In booth number 139, near the heritage Vivekananda Institute (formerly Durand Institute), only 243 names out of 931 voters have been digitised. In booth number 142 at Eastern Railway Girls’ School, 129 names out of 219 have been digitised. Similarly, in booth number 265 at Eastern Railway Girls’ High School, 707 names out of 1,230 voters have been digitised.
According to ECI rules, BLOs have visited these closed quarters more than three times, attempting to serve enumeration forms by placing them at doors or throwing them inside houses. However, they have not received completed forms for uploading and digitisation.
From just three booths, about 1,300 names are likely to be deleted. The situation is similar across other booths in the old and new railway colonies of Asansol. In booth number 139, even the residential addresses of three voters were found demolished.
Out of 928 forms distributed by BLOs in booth number 139, only 243 were returned duly filled. The scenario is almost identical across the other 27 booths.