Another Muslim-majority neighbourhood in Kolkata, Gulshan Colony has also become a hub of media fear-mongering. The allegation is that the densely populated neighbourhood has only about 1,700-3,000 voters- The area has a population of about 1.5-2 lakh. The gap in registered voters and residents has now become politicised.
Golam Sarwar, who runs a grocery store near Gulshan Colony, calls it all “propaganda”. He bought a flat in the area after moving from Rajabazar a few years ago. Another resident, Gulam Jilani, son of a former Kolkata Police personnel, also recently bought a flat in Gulshan Colony because their “old house in Ripon Street was becoming small and the family was growing”.
Residents argue that the Gulshan Colony booth is newly created. Not all residents have had their names added to this booth’s voter list yet. Until now, residents of this area used to vote in four-five booths in the West Chowbaga area, each having about 8,000–10,000 voters. Additionally, the booths in the Martin Para area have about 5,000 voters. In the last few elections, BJP is leading from the Martin Para booth.
Voting will take place in this booth during the 2026 Assembly elections for the first time. It is natural that the number of voters in this booth is still low.
Jilani says, “There are three voters in my household. But not everyone’s name has been added to this booth’s list yet. I went to the SIR help camps run by various political parties, and they told me that names cannot be transferred until SIR is complete. I must wait.”
Some people who migrated long ago from Bangladesh or East Pakistan have been living in Martin Para for years. During the Left Front government, several refugee families were rehabilitated in this area with 1.5 to 2 kathas of land. Nevertheless, countering allegations of being from Bangladesh, local resident Meherbuddin Khan points out that Bangladeshis speak Bengali. “But if you go around this area, you will barely find any Bengali speakers. Most of the people here are Urdu speaking people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi”.
A veteran sub-assistant engineer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, who has worked for many years in West Chowbaga, Martin Para, and Gulshan Colony, on condition of anonymity, confirms that though allegations of illegal construction, civic issues like poor drainage, no streetlights of garbage management may be true, the place was “definitely not a hub ob Bangladeshis”.
Regarding this controversy, TMC leader Arup Chakraborty told The Quint that the BJP has employed “its army of paid media to spread hate campaign and disinformation” across the state.
“In certain areas of Kolkata, such as Burrabazar, the BLOs haven’t found around 40 percent of the registered voters, as they have gone to Bihar to vote for the BJP there. The BJP leads in these parts of Kolkata, you won’t find the media making any fuss about it,” he alleged.
He further claims that the Election Commision of India (ECI) is “allowing double entry of some names in BJP-majority areas in voter lists of two separate states” while the media is labelling “Indians as Bangladeshi” in places such as New Town and Gulshan Colony.
The BJP’s take on this issue is rather balanced. One of the state BJP’ spokespersons, Mohit Roy, said to The Quint, “The BJP doesn’t have much to say about this process as it is an administrative procedure, and we don’t pay the media to peddle fake narratives. The sole motive for the SIR process is to weed out illegal entries from the voter list. So if certain people realise that their names had been added illegally, and through this process those names will get cancelled, and as a result if they decide to leave India, it is a welcome move”.
A section of “13 Family” slum voters cast their vote at Ghuni Free Primary School booth. The BLO, assigned to that booth spoke to The Quint on the condition of anonymity, assuring that the ECI took all care to avoid malpractice.
“The Election Commission’s mechanism ensures that there is no scope for dual entry. Even we can identify whether a person’s name is enrolled in two separate places or not. Also, the presence of multi-party BLA’s ensures that all the enrolled voters received their SIR form. However, it is not my duty to determine their nationality. If the data matches, I am sure no valid voter’s name will get knocked out from the final list.”
A government teacher by profession, the BLO declined to comment, whether she came across any ‘illegal Bangladeshi’ while distributing the SIR forms in “13 Family” cluster.
The Quint tried to contact the Bidhan Nagar Police Commissionerate for a quote, but till now we received no response.
