Kolkata SIR hearings spark outrage as elderly voters made to wait without basic facilities
Times of India | 29 December 2025
KOLKATA: Eighty-year-old Kamal Chowdhury and wife Chaitali, 75, clutched on to sheaves of papers as they waited for their turn to appear in a hearing for ‘unmapped’ voters at a north Kolkata school on Sunday, anger and frustration writ large in their faces.
The elderly couple — Chaitali suffers from knee pain — did not get a chair to sit. They were not even offered water and were asked to stand in a queue like everyone else called to the hearing, being conducted as part of the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
Worse, they were not infor-med why they were on the list of ‘unmapped’ voters (ones with no linkages to the 2002 voters’ list).
Across Kolkata and New Town, a sense of anger prevailed for the second straight day at SIR hearing centres as voters gathered without being told why they had been called and were forced to spend hours without basic amenities. “What is the point of all this? I do not care,” Chowdhury said, while waiting for his turn at Upendra Vidyamandir.
“I do not know why we were handed this hearing notice. I was born at 511 Rabindra Sarani. I have stayed there all my life and voted in many elections. Our marriage is over 40 years old. I came with all the documents I have,” Chowdhury said.
One of the documents Chaitali was holding slipped into a roadside drain, from where she picked it up. “We were both at our daughter’s house in Patipukur. There was no choice but to appear in the hearing. We are among the oldest residents of our neighbourhood, yet we were called to this hearing,” she said.
Unable to get a chair, Gita Singh, 79, was sitting on the footboard of an autorickshaw in front of the school.
“I told the officials that I cannot stand for long. But they asked me to wait till my name is called,” said Singh, angry at the way the hearing was being managed. “All my relatives have their names on the draft SIR list. I vote regularly. I do not know why I have been called. I was asked to show any document related to my parental home. It’s impossible for me to get one. I do not care about the outcome of the hearing.”
Uma Das, another elderly voter who had come with her husband, said, “This is ridiculous. We gave all the required information while filling the SIR enumeration form, yet they called us to the hearing. We were not even given the reason.”
Bharati De, 76, waiting for her turn at Ganabhaban in Shyampukur, was in tears. “I brought all the documents, including my school-leaving certificate and my bank passbook. Who knows what they will ask for?” wondered the retired schoolteacher.
At Chetla Girls’ High School, 76-year-old Dinabandhu Das said in a sarcastic tone, “I have a few more days to live, still I have to queue up just because there was a discrepancy.”
The EC database has confused his late father Gobardhan Das with another person with the same name, said Das, who has been voting at Chetla Girls High School for 50 years.
Das’s neighbour Priya Dutta, a 35-year-old professional, had brought her 60-year-old mother, who has been served with a hearing notice. “It’s harassment,” said Dutta.
Former joint police commissioner (crime) Pallab Kanti Ghosh, who was called to a hearing at a New Town address, told TOI, “Senior citizens, including very seniors, were waiting patiently, leaning against a wall at APJ Abdul Kalam College, New Town. Benches could be arranged easily. The waiting time was more than two-and-a-half hours. Worse, there was no water. This is cruel negligence... Is it on purpose?”