Scores of voters in the Mysore Lok Sabha constituency were left feeling baffled and disappointed as they couldn’t cast their vote during the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday. The reason: their names were missing from the voters’ list.
Cases were reported from rural areas such as Yelwal as well as urban areas such as Udaygiri and Shantinagar.
Voters were puzzled as they had voted in the Assembly elections last year.
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Manzur Alam Khan, who is nearly 70, and his wife Muneera Begum of Bannimantap had driven all the way from Bangalore to exercise their franchise.
“We left Bangalore at 7 a.m. and were in Mysore by 10 a.m. We picked up our voter ID cards and went to the polling booth, but were shocked to learn that both our names were missing from the list.
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“It is incomprehensible. How could our names be deleted from the voters’ list? We are long-time residents of the area and we voted in the Assembly elections last year,” said an upset Mr. Khan.
“For the last few hours, we have been going to different polling booths hoping to find our names there but we had no luck,” he added. Mr. Khan said he tried to send an SMS of his voter ID card number to ascertain the details of his polling booth but he drew a blank. Incidentally, the name of his brother who resides in the same locality was in the voters’ list.
‘I was keen on voting’Pratibha, a resident of Saraswathipuram for the last 11 years, frantically searched for her name at the polling booth at JSS College for Women but met with no success.
“I was really keen on voting. Though the government and the local authorities have encouraged people to come out and vote, we are unable to do so because of the faulty voters’ list,” she said.
At Yelwal, on the outskirts of Mysore, there was brisk voting, but a sizeable number of people returned disappointed after being unable to vote.
A staff member manning the Voters’ Facilitation Centre told The Hindu that scores of people were disappointed as their names were missing from the list, though they said they had voted in the earlier elections.
Another staff member explained that polling booths may have changed in some cases owing to change of address, but voters were not aware of it.
District Electoral Officer C. Shikha said that complaints of missing names were less compared with the previous elections. “Perhaps they submitted the applications for their names to be included late,” she said.