Missing names from electoral rolls irk voters

New Delhi, April 11 (IANS) Shweta Sharma, a resident of Dehradun, tweeted on Thursday morning: "Celebration of democracy in Uttarakhand today. Will be there to cast my vote." However, crestfallen after finding her name missing from the voters' list, she, like many others, took to Twitter to share her anguish.

The flood of Twitter posts reporting names going missing from the electoral rolls began after Shobana Kamineni, Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, tweeted that she found her name disappear from the list at a polling booth in Hyderabad.

Kamineni, who said she was travelling abroad and came back just to cast her vote, shared a video saying: "I come to the booth and I am told that my vote is deleted. Am I not an Indian citizen? Am I not counted in this country? Is my vote not important? I think this is a crime against me as a citizen and I will not tolerate it. I feel cheated today."

The social media platform was fraught with stories of eligible voters finding their names missing.

Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw tweeted that her mother's name was deleted from the voter list. "My mother's voter ID has been deleted on some flimsy excuse that there was a report that she no longer lives at her address. She is so upset I can't tell you because she has been at the same address for 19 years. So much for 'verification'," she tweeted.

Dehradun girl Sharma told IANS that she went to the polling booth in Ward 25 with her voter ID. She, however, did not find her name in the list.

"Tried it all. From polling booth to online services, nothing works when it comes to finding name of self and husband in the voters list, having our voter ID, Aadhaar and all documents nothing helps," she tweeted.

Saikrishna Duppalli, a 27-year-old designer based in Hyderabad, said that he travelled over 150 km to Telangana's Karimnagar district to cast his vote, but found his name missing from the list. "I feel this is a scam," he told IANS over the phone.

"Please stop being ignorant about the fact that a lot of voters' names have been disappearing for a long time now. As a citizen of India, I feel like a victim of vote bank politics," he said.

The story of 84-year-old Krishnaji Raina was shared his family member by Sanjay Raina. Along with a photograph of the senior citizen's voter ID card, he tweeted: "This is how we treat our voters. No name on voter list and at the age of 84 he returned back from polling booth without casting his vote."