Feel irritated and upset: Unable to find names on voters lists, some turned away from polling booths

“My mobile is connected to my voter ID. If my name is not on the list and deleted, I should have been informed or gotten a message, but there was no information from the Election Commission. I feel very irritated and upset because I am a citizen and have the right to vote. My wife also lives with me, but her name is on the list,” he said.

Fatima Bhano, 38, a resident of Viji Nagar Rithala couldn’t find her name in the voter list at Delhi Rithala Pratm Vidyalaya. “ My name is not in the voter list. They are now asking me to another sector to. For me, the biggest issue is the inflation. The electicity bill even in the winters was so high” Bhano has two children but chooses to send them to private schools . “The government schools are in a very bad condition. Its all a show, they just lie about schools being great but there are not,” she said.

Polling agents of Congress and AAP in Shalimar Village also alleged that names of some people were missing from the voter list.

At Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya (SKV) No 2, a model polling booth in the Rajouri Garden Assembly constituency, Azhar Abbas Khan, 58, was one such voter. Khan said he has been living in the Rajouri Garden area of Delhi since 1989 and has voted in the constituency in almost all the elections in between.

Khan said he arrived at the government school at around 9.15 am only to be told his name was not on the voters’ list. “My name has been deleted. Maybe it’s because I changed my address,” he said.

On his way to the municipal corporation primary school in Raghubir Nagar, crossing through the cramped labour chowk, Khan pointed to an open drain. “The MLA has done some work. However, hygiene issues and waterlogging caused by the overflowing drain have not been sorted. People from my area complain, but nothing has been done about it,” he said.

Khan walked to the polling officers inside the Raghubir Nagar primary school, one kilometre away, in his last attempt at finding his name. “What is your address on the voter card?” a polling officer asked Khan. “L- 185,” said Khan.

As the polling officer examined the voters’ list in the L-block section, his and son Irfan Khan’s names were marked as “deleted”. Disappointed, Khan called his son, telling him that they could not vote. “I have lived on rent all my life. I even voted in the Lok Sabha (2024). After that, I shifted. How many times will I change my address?” he asked.

Meanwhile, Deboo Singh, 74, travelled from Darbhanga, Bihar, to cast his vote and was out of the polling booth within 10 minutes. He shifted out of Delhi three years ago but found his name on the list.

“I have been travelling back to Delhi for every election for the past three years,” said Singh, who was a resident of Rajinder Nagar when he first came to Delhi in 2004 and started working as a security guard but went back to his village in 2022.

“Mudda toh kuch nahi hai, hum 20 saal se ek hi party ko vote de rahe hai, BJP se hi humara purana rishta hai (There is no specific electoral issue for me, I have been voting for the BJP for two decades). I came specifically to Delhi from my village to cast my vote here and will return home after taking a dip at Mahakumbh on February 11,” said Singh.