Complaints of missing names, errors in voters’ list resurface
Some citizens who patiently waited in long queues to cast their votes for the Lok Sabha elections on Friday in Bengaluru were disheartened to nd that their names were either absent or deleted from the electoral rolls — a problem that the city has reported in the previous elections too.
Citizens in Chickpet and Akkipet of Bengaluru Central constituency have alleged that hundreds of names were deleted from the voter list. “Last year during the Assembly election, our names were on the voters’ list and we successfully voted. But, on Friday we came to the booth to vote and were shocked to nd our names deleted without verication,” a voter alleged.
“If there are six votes in a family, the names of three to four voters are deleted from the list,” they said, claiming that names of more than a 100 people were deleted from the voters’ list this time.
Sajjan Raj Mehta, trade activist said, “I feel in democracy, the basic right to vote denied illegally is a crime and citizen’s right to vote needs to be provided at any cost if valid ID cards are available.” Complaints of missing names from voters’ lists surfaced in a polling booth in Indiranagar too, as a woman was seen making frantic calls and approaching the polling ofcials in a hu¥ after she found that her mother’s name had gone missing.
While such incidents were reported in the di¥erent areas of the city, citizens were frustrated with the lack of response from ocials. “Each ocial we approached simply passed us on to some other ocials. There seemed to be a reluctance to take ownership and address our concerns,” said Punitha H., a resident of BTM Layout.
Additionally, there were cases where voters’ names were misspelled, leading to lengthy waits as they sought rectication.
Missing votes and confusion
Political parties’ failure to distribute voter slips in all areas led to confusion at some booths. Many turned up at the booths without knowing their part number. Some others didn’t have EPIC cards, and most people only had Aadhaar cards. Agents of political parties had a tough time locating the part numbers of the voters based on their names, phone numbers or Aadhaar numbers.