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Sheila questions Minister

Staff Reporter

`Is it possible to set up Voter I-Card centres in just 3 months?'

NEW DELHI: A piquant situation arose in the Delhi Assembly on Monday when Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit herself posed a question to her Industries Minister Mangat Ram Singhal on how he intended to complete the work of setting up a Voter Registration and Identity Card Centre in each of the 70 Assembly segments in just three months when in the past so many years only five had been established?

To add to the Minister's embarrassment, House Speaker Prem Singh criticised the Ministry on the count that thousands of people were prevented from casting their votes in the recent Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections despite possessing valid ration cards.

It was after the Minister had answered a question on how 21 documents could be used for getting a vote made and how the new centres for voters would be set up that the Chief Minister sprang the surprise. She asked Mr. Singhal how he intended to set up the remaining centres so quickly and insisted that the area MLAs be informed whenever a centre is opened in their constituency.

"You say a centre has been opened in Gole Market. But I do not know where it is," said the Chief Minister to the Minister.

The Speaker then declared that he wanted to pose a question to the Minister too. "When the name of the voter is there in the voters' list, then how is it that they are prevented by your office from voting? Thousands were prevented from casting their votes in the MCD elections. This is not good," he said.

At this. Mr. Singhal justified that the decision to not allow ration cards as identity proof was that of the State Election Commission over which he had no control. But he assured that whenever a new centre would be opened, the local MLA would be informed. During this discussion, MLAs also questioned how in the recent MCD polls the police were allowed to bar entry of voters from polling stations at the gates. This power does not vest with the police. Only the polling agents and the presiding officers can ask for identity proof, the Members insisted.

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