The problem of missing names came back to haunt voters in the mayoral election also as a good number of voters returned disappointed from polling stations, while few tried to exercise their right claiming to have voted at the same booth in the recently concluded lok Sabha election.
The cases may not be of huge numbers in terms of absolute strength of such disgruntled voters but it baffled voters who wanted to exercise their franchise to elect mayor after one year of the rescinded mayoral election. Ironically, names in the voters’ list used for lS polls were not the guarantee for the permission to cast vote in the election for filling the vacant position of Mayor.
“I had voted in this booth in lS elections but today my name is missing from the voters list. Can u believe that my family members’ names are in the voters list but I am out of the listIJ” said Bhola Singh, a voter of a booth at Government High School Morhabadi.
Several voters had to go through similar experiences at other booths in Ranchi municipal area.
At least two voters at a booth at Rajkiyakrit Balika Ucch Vidyalaya had to return without voting, while the missing name in the voters list led to a brief altercation between the voters and the polling official.
The voters, however, claimed in front of the polling officials that they had voted at the same booth during lS elections.
“Although they were carrying photo identity cards but their names were not in the voters list. They wanted to vote but I did not allow them,” said a polling official at the polling centre. As many as two voters at SS Memorial College and three at SIRD campus were among countless others who were denied voting rights because of someone else’s fault.
Interestingly, the voters list that was used for mayoral election was similar to that used for lS elections conducted in April and was published on June 4 after 10-days of special drive started on May 24 to get the name registered in the voters list. State Election Commission (SEC) officials, however, sought to downplay the incident of missing names which they believed is more a case of people misguided by shift in booths than omission of names from the voters list.
“Even I had to search for the booth. This time I have voted in different booth but the centre is same. I believe that polling officials needed to be more forthcoming to a voter to enable them to find their names in the voters list,” said SEC Secretary Umesh Prasad Singh.