Prasiddh Kumar Sharma (69) and his 58-year-old wife Manisha Sharma roamed around west Delhi’s Ramdutt Enclave for around 40 minutes in the scorching afternoon sun looking for their polling station before they could finally cast their vote on Sunday.
The restructuring of the 272 municipal wards in the city had shifted their usual polling station. Many faced a similar problem.
“My son lives a few lanes ahead of us and till the last elections both our stations used to be the Milap Nagar primary school. But this time, my son’s family had their names in the list, but my wife’s and my name was missing,” said Mr. Sharma.
He said the experience was made worse as the election staff did not help them locate their new ward. “After a point we were so exhausted that we just wanted to go home without casting our votes,” he said.
In January this year, the Delhi State Election Commission (DSEC) notified the delimitation of municipal wards, paving the way for Sunday’s municipal polls. The idea was to maintain an average population size of 60,000 per ward, for more efficient functioning.
Voters, however, claimed that lack of proper communication about the newly marked wards by the SEC created confusion. Many ended up not casting their votes thinking that their names have been struck out.
Names missing
In Paschim Vihar, six of seven members from Sukhvinder Singh’s family did not find their names in the voter list in their station. Dejected, the family ended up not voting. “I have been running around asking councillors and RWA members to help us. How can all our names just vanish?” he said.
Many people said they could not vote as their name wasn’t on the list released by the SEC. An eight-months pregnant woman who had come to cast her vote in north Delhi’s Model Town-II said she couldn’t find her name on the list despite 14 of her family members being able to vote. “It’s my right and I have been denied that,” said 34-year-old Naha Jain.
Polling agents claimed that over 500 people in the area who couldn’t find their names even in the list online, and failed to vote.
“We went to the same polling station that we had voted at last elections but our names were not on the list. This was despite slips bearing our name having been dropped off at home. But my wife and I were determined to cast our ballots and visited two other booths till they were able to locate our names on the list and let us vote,” said Roop Chand Charauria, a resident of east Delhi’s Gandhi Nagar.
Proper arrangements
Responding to complaints about voters not being able to find their polling stations, Delhi State Election Commissioner S. K. Srivastava said that the panel had tried to make the public aware by publicising the ‘know your polling station’ feature on its website.
They received over 500 queries from voters on their helpline for information on their polling station. He added that a call centre, with five phone lines, was also set up to assist voters to figure out which polling station to go to. He added that the call centre worked throughout the day and that the SEC also answered emails promptly. He said that the Commission would look into complaints from the public.
