As the mayoral elections are drawing nearer, the residents of Haridwar are alleging that the voters’ lists have been manipulated with names of many genuine voters being struck off. They, further, say that despite complaints being made, the district authorities are sitting on them.
Residents of ward no 32 alleged that there was a massive manipulation of the voters’ list for the forthcoming elections for the municipal corporation. As many as 600 names of genuine voters residing in different colonies in the city who have cast votes in the previous elections have been deleted, they alleged.
Quick to latch onto the people’s grievances, the senior district Congress leader Ambrish Kumar alleged that the local Lekhpal and BLO have worked at the bidding of the ruling BJP.
The opposition party threatened to launch a full blown stir if the district administration fails to act and revise the list by including the names of the genuine voters in it. “The ruling party in cahoots with some agents in the administration is trying to reduce the urban local body election here to a farce. But my party would not sit idle,” he warned.
A retired BHEL officer, Shailesh Kumar from Gol Gurudwara Colony, said that the names of all his family members have been wiped clean of the voters’ list despite the fact that they all have voter identity cards. “This amounts to an attack on democracy itself. The genuine voters are being robbed of their voting rights,” he said. Echoing the same grievance, Ram Kumar Sehra from the same colony said that the same had happened to his family. “When the Government officials came for verification of the names they were shown the documents related to our voting rights. But mysteriously, our names have not figured in the list,” he alleged.
Niraj Verma, who runs a flour mill, also alleged that their names had remained out of the voters’ list for reasons not known to them. “It happened during the previous local body election which was held in 2013.
The same has happened this time too. This is despite the fact that we have been staying in the area since 1985. Since photos of the residents are not there in the voters’ list the names are being deleted easily by the administration,” he said.
Speaking to The Pioneer, the former MLA and Congress leader Ambrish Kumar cited an instance of Veena Shastri, the principal of Mahila College at Kankhal. “Her name did not figure in the list during the last election despite the fact she was a prospective candidate for the mayor’s post,” he said. He wondered why the voters’ list for LS polls was not being used for the ULB polls.
He, further, said that the sacred BJP was instrumental in the list manipulation. “They know that a debacle is staring them in the face because of their failure to do anything good over the past 10 years. Sorry state of the solid waste management is one of such failures. Despite contract being given to a company nine years ago, nothing has happened so far,” he said.