Premvati, a 65-year-old domestic help, walked nearly a kilometre to a polling centre in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur on Saturday afternoon but returned home disappointed on not finding her name in any of the three polling booths there.
Premvati’s was not an isolated case. Throughout Saturday, reports came in of people making frantic but unsuccessful attempts at finding their names in the electoral lists.
At Shaheen Bagh, the epicentre of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protest in Delhi, a poll staff on duty acknowledged that there were a few people who couldn’t cast their votes. “Their names were either found deleted or incorrect in the voters list,” said the staff.
In central Delhi’s Matia Mahal, businessman Mohammad Rafeeq alleged that his name was deleted from the voter list. “The security person sitting at the entrance of the polling station checked my voting slip and approved it. But when it was my turn to vote, an official inside the station told me that my name was deleted. I was asked to contact the election office, but how did they expect me to do that on polling day?,” Rafeeq said.
Old Delhi’s Hajra Begum, a 62-year-old retired librarian, was luckier than Rafeeq despite finding herself in a similar position. “I have voted in the same station for the last decade, but was told that my name was deleted from the electoral roll. After an hour, we somehow found the helpline number and got voting details from the ECI’s database,” said Begum.
The customer service official found Begum’s name in the voters’ list after which the attendants handed her the voting slip. “Most of the people voting at the centre had similar complaints. I saw the electoral roll, and every other page had at least one name stamped ‘deleted’,” said Begum.
In east Delhi’s Vishwas Nagar, 48-year-old Seema Mohta arrived at a polling centre with her husband days after undergoing a heart surgery. But the couple had to return without casting their votes. “I took blood pressure control tablets to come out and vote, but we couldn’t find our names in the electoral list despite visiting three booths,” said Mohra.
Asma Rehman, ex-councillor and wife of AAP candidate from Seelampur Abdul Rehman, alleged that names of many voters were missing from the voters list. She also alleged that voters’ slips were not properly distributed in some areas, including Chauhan Bangar and Jafarabad Gali Number 26.
However, Ranbir Singh, the chief election officer of Delhi, said that they had received no complaints of voters’ names being deleted, until evening. “However, it might be possible that the voters’ list may have the voters’ the names, but it was not updated in the record of the booth level officers (BLOs),” said Singh.
