NEW DELHI: If error in electoral rolls cannot spare even the chief of the election machinery what could be fate of millions voters across the country?
With Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla’s name appearing in voter lists of two different booths with wrong residence address in one list, the question of bad electoral management stared directly at the Election Commission on Thursday.
Several scribes coming from Vasundhara in Ghaziabad constituency also quizzed the EC over their names missing from the electoral rolls. EC officials tried to brush off the slip-up as clerical error and claimed that finally the CEC’s name figured only in one booth where he cast his vote on Thursday.
“The wrong house number as well as one booth (number 85) were deleted from the list and Chawla did not have to go through any difficulty in casting his vote today,” said EC officials, adding that complaints of missing names of scribes will be taken up after the electoral exercise is over.
In the case of CEC, after coming across the mistake, Chawla had pointed out to Delhi’s Chief Electoral Officer on February 5 that his and his wife’s names appeared at two booths in the New Delhi Lok Sabha constituency.
Chawla in a letter to the CEO wanted their names to be removed from booth number 85 of the list and retained in booth number 86, both falling in Nirman Bhawan, a government building housing offices of several ministries.
Following his request, the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) informed him that in the final rolls their names in booth number 85 have been deleted. But still the names of both Chawla and his wife Rupika appeared “inadvertently” in photo electoral rolls showing their names in both the booths number 85 and 86, which was rectified later. In order to play down the gaffe, Chawla also called it a clerical error after casting vote with his family at booth number 86.