Dejected voters who were not able to exercise their franchise were seen in many booths across the city on Thursday.
Large crowds were seen at political party counters searching book after book for their details. In many cases, names were not to be found in voters’ lists, or booth slips had not been delivered to homes. Voters like 66-year-old Bhaskaran of R. K. Nagar expressed frustration at the situation. “I was born and brought up in this area and have voted in every election. I have been standing in a queue in this heat only to be told that I cannot vote. I have every possible card including Aadhar,” he said, displaying his voter ID card, Aadhar card and family card.
Kishore Singhi, a resident of Kilpauk for the past 33 years, said that this was the first time in 22 years that he had not been able to vote. “My parents who don’t have voter IDs were able to vote. From the morning, around 250 people went back home without being able to cast their vote in booth number 108,” he said.
Srinivasan Swaminathan of Adambakkam said though he had applied for a voter ID card, he had not received it. “My brother and I applied at the same time. But he got a card and voted. In the 2011 elections I got a booth slip that had the number of my ID card. But this time I did not get one,” he said.
Voters said polling officials had not uniformly adhered to instructions. Vikram, a resident of Korukkupet, said, though it was announced persons having a booth slip need not necessarily take along their voter ID card, polling and security officials demanded to see the ID card along with the slip.
In other cases, addresses of voters had been wrongly mentioned in voter ID cards, causing more discomfort. “We kept searching for my wife’s names in different voters’ lists. Then, finally, when we found the part number, we were able to trace it to a different booth. The booth agents and government teachers followed different numbering and search patterns. The latter followed part numbers whereas the booth agents searched using addresses,” said Manikantan, a resident of Velachery.
(Reporting by Petlee Peter, R. Srikanth, Asha Sridhar, Sunitha Sekar and Deepa H. Ramakrishnan)
