Voter ID card in hand, many return home disappointed

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 19

A number of city residents had to return disappointed from polling booths today as they could not vote despite possessing valid voter ID cards.

Due to various anomalies at the end of election officials, such voters, who had been waiting to be part of forming the next government in the world’s largest democracy, had a bad day.

In some voter slips, the name and photograph of the voter were different. This led to a lot of confusion. The anomaly prevented voters from exercising their franchise.

“I have a valid voter ID card. Two days ago, a voter slip was left at my place by some election official. When I went to the polling booth today, officials told me my name was not there in the voting list. I showed them the voter slip. A perusal of the slip revealed that while it carried my picture and address, the name mentioned on it was of some Somnath. I could not vote. It was very annoying,” rued Partap Chand, a resident of Sector 45-C.

Besides, there were a number of cases where voters did not find their names on the list even though they possessed their voter ID cards.

Manu Bhasin, a BJP leader at a booth in Sector 28-D, said, “Here, we have got about 30 cases where people had voter ID cards, but their names did not exist on the voters’ list.”

Chief Electoral Officer AK Sinha said, “For the past three months, we have been asking people through media and other means to check their names in the voters’ list.”