Polling over but drive to add more voters to continue

State electoral officer Debashish Chakravarty too said that the drive should be an ongoing process and the aim is to ensure that all voters have the mandatory EPIC card before the next elections.

Dalvi said that though a good number of new names were registered,it did not result in the voters excercising their right.

“We had conducted several drives to spread awareness. After the counting on October 22 we will meet to discuss the reasons for low turnout,” he said.

However,several citizens are peeved over the fact that they could not vote this Assembly elections even after voting in the Lok Sabha elections.

Sushil Kumar from NIBM Road voted for the Lok Sabha elections but could not do so this time as the polling officers could not find his name in the list. This even after he has an elector’s ID card. Kumar said he checked with other pollintg centres in the area but his name was not in any list.

Though the election officer had said that any person who has an ID card could vote,provided the voter’s details are verified,the officers at the polling centres did not permit the voters,” he said adding that this shows sheer apathy from the part of administrators. “How can my name go missing suddenly,” Kumar asks.

Brigadier H S Sahi (Retd.) said the voters ID card is full of mistakes. “There are so many errors that it can’t be treated as an ID card at all,” he said. While another citizen Madhuri Mathur has been issued three cards,Sahi said that the agency who were given the work of distribution of cards has messed it up.

Krishna Murthy,who has been resident of Kothrud for the last 15 years,said that although he has an ID card,his name was not in the list of any centre. “I could not vote for Lok Sabha elections as well,” he said. Although Murthy had filled up form 8 for corrections,nothing came of it,he says.

All these confusion clearly refelects in the final turnout. Only 45.77 per cent voters turned out to exercise their franchise in the 11 urban constituencies in the district located within the two municipal corporations of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. Pune,which accounts for eight of the 11 urban seats,witnessed a turnout of just 45.06 per cent,the lowest in the last three decades. Indapur,one of the 10 rural constituencies,recorded the highest turnout in the district at 76.38 per cent while Pune Cantonment (SC) reserved constituency,had the lowest turnout of 35.98 per cent. In all,35,25,408 people had cast their votes in the district,of which 17,98,293 were from the rural constituencies and 17,27,115 from urban constituencies.