The Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) has asked the Chief Postmaster General of the Delhi circle to “fix responsibility” for negligence in handling of voter ID cards that were allegedly found dumped in Badarpur. The state CEO, in his report on the Aam Aadmi Party’s complaint submitted to the Election Commission (EC) on April 15, is learnt to have informed the poll panel that delivery of the voter ID cards was outsourced to a private person against the vacancy of a postman. The person, who allegedly dumped the cards instead of delivering them, has been fired on the orders of the Chief Postmaster General. AAP’s South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha had written to the EC seeking an inquiry into the discovery of roughly 150 voter cards allegedly found dumped in Badarpur. “The incident highlights a shocking. state of affairs where the best situation one can hope for is that an inquiry will discover that this was a case of officials and employees in the election machinery being slothful and careless,” Chadha had written in his letter. Chadha had also claimed on Twitter that the voter IDs “belong to those who had applied for enrollment via AAP voter registration camps”. The Delhi CEO was subsequently asked by the Commission to conduct an inquiry. Speaking to The Indian Express, Delhi CEO Ranbir Singh said: “We have written to him (Chief Postmaster General) that you should conduct an inquiry into the matter and fix responsibility, and send a report. I have also directed Mr Satnam Singh (Special CEO) to standardise the procedure and lay down SOPs and also put in place a monitoring mechanism so that such a thing doesn’t happen in the future. I asked him to do this jointly with the Postmaster General, so that both the postal department and our centre work in tandem and it is closely monitored.” According to Satnam Singh, out of the 147 cards in question, 132 have been distributed to the respective voters and that the CEO’s office is trying to figure out addresses of the remaining 15. “They have promised that within one week, they will conduct an inquiry and submit the report. However, we haven’t received anything from them yet. But they have terminated the services of the person who was supposed to distribute these voter I-cards. He was not a government servant or a postman. They had hired a private entity against the vacancy of a postman,” said Singh. “We also held a meeting with them. One nodal officer each has been assigned in our office as well as theirs. The applicant will be informed of the process through text messages — like when their card has been dispatched and delivered,” he added. The District Election Officer (South East) Harleen Kaur had in her enquiry found that the negligence was on part of the postman of Badarpur post office, who was given the task of delivering the cards. A complaint in this regard was also lodged with the Delhi Police.
