Fifty held for impersonation

In the Walled City’s Maliwara area, which falls in the Chandni Chowk constituency, a group of youths were spotted removing the indelible ink from the index fingers of their friends and supporters.

“How much impact will bogus-voting, at such a small scale, have on the final outcome,” was the casual reaction of a political worker at independent candidate Chakresh Jain’s stall.In Mahipalpur, an elderly woman cast her vote in a polling station at school, got the indelible ink removed, and walked across the road to another school to cast another vote. She was not caught. Supporters of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Inder Malik in Masoodpur also in Mahipalpur constituency had allegedly set up a “special ink-removing office” under the watchful’ eyes of Delhi policemen in the vicinity. In Sitapuri, four Sanjay Singhs walked into polling booth 114 to cast their votes. Claiming to be students of Classes VIII, IX and X, the boys confidently declared their ages, which ranged from 18 to 21 years.

Two of them got away but the remaining two were not that successful. They were pulled aside by a party worker, admonished and told not to step inside the booth again. They walked out to loud cheers from their friends. In Paharganj, several voters found their names missing from the voters’ list, though they had their voter identity card on their person and claimed that they had voted in the February 1998 Parliamentary elections. Voters at a polling booth in Outer Delhi’s Najafgarh constituency had an altercation with the police after they were refused entry because “their votes had already been cast by some other persons".