LUCKNOW: With general elections coming closer, strange things are taking place. Large-scale anomalies have been found in voters' list in Ballia district of eastern UP. The revised list uploaded recently has photographs of a skimpily clothed woman, wild animals, elephant, parrot and deer against the listed voters. However, after the faux pas, district election office withdrew it and rectified the error.
While the list carries the picture of a woman resembling actor Sunny Leone in against the name of voter Durgawati Singh of Vevekanand Colony, picture of a deer could be found against the name of Kunwar Ankur Singh. Similarly, an African jumbo is representing Narad Rai, a former state minister and a pigeon is pasted against the name of Kunwar Gaurav.
Ironically, except the picture, all the other details of the voters in the list are correct. For example, Naradrai's house number (85), locality - Chandrashekhar Nagar Colony, Ballia - have been mentioned properly but the photograph.
While the district administration has ordered a probe into the origin of the mischief, when the glaring mistakes were brought to the notice of election officials, they immediately got the error rectified and initiated action against the date entry operator.
As per the district election office sources, the anomalies detected in Ballia Sadar tehsil might have gone in the final list in course of meeting the deadline of the Election Commission of India.
"It seems that the data entry operator was not provided with the pictures and he put a temporary photograph to be changed with actual pictures later. But it went into the final revised list and it was uploaded as it was without being cross-checked," said an official in the district election office on condition of anonymity.
Notably, as per the directive of the Election Commission of India, the revised voters' list had to be prepared and uploaded by July 15. "Action in this connection has already been taken even before my arrival here," said the Ballia Sadar SDM Ashwini Srivastava, who joined the office 20 days back. He said that the district election registration officer (ERO) and city magistrate Vishram Yadav transferred to data entry operator concerned to Belthra Road Tehsil.
Admitting the mistake, the ERO said that it was rectified on August 13 before the publication of the final list. He added that an FIR was lodged against the operator concerned with Ballia city Kotwali police station and further probe was on. He said that the final voters' list was to be published by August 15, but the deadline was extended for now.