BMC elections 2017: Chaos, anger as many names missing from voter lists

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Imtiyaz Rokhadia, who had gone to vote with his family and neighbours, said he spent more than five hours trying to meet the ward’s returning officer and then making a representation of his grievance. Neela Modi, from Jeevan Nagar nearby, added she was shocked to find her name struck off from the voters’ list. “I have voted in every election,” the 70-year-old, said, adding, “this is very surprising.”

In Malad East, Manish Parmar spent the day shuttling in vain from one ward to another in an effort to locate his name. “My family’s names are listed in this ward, but mine is missing. The authorities told me to check in Ward 44 and 46 too. I am tired of running around and just find the whole exercise futile,” he said. Another voter, who asked not to be named, complained that the government should have spent the money used for advertising in printing accurate voter lists. “The government spends so much on advertising that ‘every vote counts’, but what is the point when our names are not on the voter list? How will we make our vote count now?” he said.

In Charkop’s Ekta Nagar, Congress candidate Geeta Yadav complained that about 1,200 voters residing in Manihar Chawl in her ward were shown as voters of the adjoining ward. Incidentally, 1,500 voters from the adjoining ward were listed in the rolls of her ward. Shantabai Pednekar, 70, a Magathane resident, claimed that she had travelled from Jogeshwari, where her family has temporarily relocated, to vote, but her name did not figure in the list. “How can this be? I’ve been voting for several decades. My name would always figure in the list,” she said, adding, “My son’s name figured in the list. But mine was missing.”

A BJP poll manager from a ward in the Dahisar assembly constituency alleged that the election officials had circulated a new CD containing updated rolls just a day before elections.

“We had no time to check if all the names had been properly included,” he said. The poll manager, who wished not to be named, alleged that “the problem of the missing voters was more pronounced among upper middle-class voters, which the BJP had been banking on.”

Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam made a stinging allegation that the rolls had been deliberately manipulated by municipal officials. “Several Congress voters lost out on their right to vote,” he claimed.

At Cuffe Parade’s GD Somani School, which saw a large voter turnout, voters alleged a conspiracy behind missing names. “The names of those from outside Maharashtra and Muslims are missing from the list. This is suspicious,” alleged Chandrabali Gupta, a resident of Cuffe Parade’s Ganesh Murti Nagar.

In Govandi’s Ward 139, Qureshi Mohammed Akram kept looking for his name in the voter lists at the desks set up by various parties, but returned dejected. “Our names were part of the list for the state Assembly polls in 2014, but now we cannot find them in any booth. We are told that the delimitation may have led to this problem. It has been a few hours, since I started looking for my name, but in vain,” he said. His name, along with the names of his mother and brother, were missing from the list, he claimed.

Salma Mohammed, a resident of ward 142, said many names that were on the voters’ list had mistakes. “Many names on the list were incorrect, which caused a lot of confusion. It added to the chaos of trying to find our names in the polling booths,” she said.