4,000 EVMs Gutted in Fire at Bengal Govt Building Used for Assembly Poll Storage.

Blaze erupts at South 24 Parganas zilla parishad office in Kolkata’s Alipore; fire minister says machines from 10 constituencies destroyed, probe underway.

Kolkata, June 12, 2026: Around 4,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were destroyed after a fire broke out in a government building in Kolkata on Wednesday, officials said. The machines were stored in the 10-storey administrative building of the South 24 Parganas zilla parishad in the Alipore area. 

Fire Reaches 8th, 9th Floors.

State fire minister Kaushik Chowdhury said preliminary investigation suggests the fire started on the third or fourth floor around 9:50 am and unexpectedly reached the eighth and ninth floors, where the EVMs were kept. The fifth, sixth and seventh floors in between were not damaged. 

Ten fire tenders were pressed into service to bring the blaze under control. 

Machines From 10 Assembly Seats Destroyed.

Apart from a few government offices, including one linked to the midday meal scheme, around 4,000 EVMs from about 10 Assembly constituencies were destroyed, Chowdhury said after visiting the spot Thursday. 

The building houses several state government departments. Arrested TMC leader Jahangir Khan, who was also the Karmadakshya of the zilla parishad, had his office there. The zilla parishad is run by the Trinamool Congress, and South 24 Parganas is considered a bastion of TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee. 

 FIR Filed, Forensic Team Faces Heat.

An FIR was registered and an investigation has been initiated, Chowdhury said. Forensic officials who came to collect samples faced difficulty entering the gutted floors as the building was still hot.