BHUBANESWAR/CUTTACK: Several residents of Twin City were deprived of their right to vote due to goof-ups in voters’ list for elections to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack Municipal Corporations on Thursday.
In State Capital, many voters could not find their names in the BMC voters list. A group of people also staged a protest in Gadakana over the issue. A number of voters from Jaydev Vihar, Khandagiri and other places alleged that though the names of their family members were in the voters list, their names were missing.
Subhadarsini Mishra, a journalist who went to exercise her franchise at booth 482 said she had to return without voting as her name which was in the Assembly voters list was missing from the BMC list.She also alleged that some polling personnel even asked her to show chirkuti (voter’s slip) which is not allowed inside the polling booth. Like her, many returned home without voting.
In Cuttack city, the electoral rolls were prepared in a manner that women were registered as the residents of one ward and their husbands names were found in the voters list of another ward. At least 25 per cent of voters were unable to find their names in the wards they stay in. Names of many were missing or listed in other wards as a result of which, they stayed away from voting.
Ajay Das, a resident of Rajendra Nagar in Ward 52, found his name listed in Ward 53. But when he reached the polling booth in Ward 53, he was shocked to find out that someone had already voted on his behalf.
“The past elections were never so troublesome. I reached the booth in my area to be asked to search my name in the electoral roll of Ward 53. I found my name there but on entering the booth, I was told that a vote had already been cast in my name,” said Das, who blamed the polling officials behind the mismanagement and negligence in checking the identity of the voters.
Ashok Sahu of Jobra Majhi Sahi in Ward 40 also had to face trouble in locating names in the voters list. Names of his wife and other family members were found in the list of Ward 41. However, his and his sister’s names were missing from the list of both the wards. “We did not check the voters list before coming to vote because we had voted in all the past elections from Ward 40. There is no reason for us to believe that our names would be deleted or shifted to voters list of other wards,” he said. The family ended up not voting. “What will we get by voting in another ward when we do not know the corporator candidate there,” he said.
CMC officials admitted several names had been left out during the door-to-door survey. “Mistakes pointed out by people regarding their names had been corrected,” they said.