Gender bender: The faulty cards. (Alamgir Hossain)

Hariharpara, April 9: About 250 residents of a Murshida- bad village may not be able to vote in the panchayat elections next month because of no fault of theirs.

Their voter cards have others’ photographs. In some, there is a man’s picture on a woman’s card or the opposite.

Abdur Rahman, 60, an affluent farmer, got the shock of his life when he found local imam Abdul Hafiz’s photograph on his card.

“My wife Hosnabanu’s card has the photo of Anima Halder, who lives a few houses away,” said Abdur.

Anima, 40, is herself in trouble. “My card has the picture of Ahsan Mondal, a village youth,” she said.

Farmer Gafar Mollah, 60, has an error-free card. But his wife Aiman, 55, son Majid, 30, and daughter-in-law Sanjana, 25, have got other people’s photographs on their cards.

“Only I can vote in my family,” said Gafar, with regret rather than pride.

Housewife Samsunnahar Bibi, 37, has the face of Amal Majhi on her card.

The 1,000-odd voters of Ganeshnagar in Hariharpara, who got the cards in January 2007, have refused to go to any office outside their village to get the errors corrected because the fault is not theirs.

In February last year, the villagers submitted a petition to the Hariharpara block development officer requesting him to arrange for the correction of the cards.

“But the BDO told us to go to Behrampore, 17km away. We are not ready to spend money and go all the way to Behrampore to rectify a mistake that we did not commit,” said Ainal Sheikh.

District magistrate Subir Bhadra said no villager would be allowed to vote in the ab- sence of valid voter cards but promised some special arrangement for the 250 in Ganeshnagar, about 300km from Calcutta.

The villagers, Bhadra added, had been told to go to the panchayat office to get the mistakes corrected. “They missed the deadline.”

The villagers did not go the panchayat office because it is 13km away.