Kolkata: Forty-year-old Sumita Koley (name changed), a resident of the Chetla red-light area, has never voted. This year, she is determined to change that.

She queued up on Wednesday at a Special Intensive Revision (SIR) assistance camp at Chetla area in south Kolkata, hoping to secure their place as voters.

Koley was among nearly 200 women who crowded the small club room at 29/A Rakhaldas Addya Road, a narrow stretch surrounded by slums and single-storey homes that have long been inhabited by sex workers.

The camp followed similar ones held a day earlier in Sonagachi, Asia’s largest red-light district, in north Kolkata.

Watching the turnout, Swapna Gyne, an office-bearer of the NGO Amra Padatik, said the enthusiasm masks deep anxieties.

Around 3,500 sex workers earn their livelihood

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