The Hindu : New Delhi News : Faulty electoral rolls worry Mukhi

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Saturday, Jun 14, 2008
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New Delhi

Faulty electoral rolls worry Mukhi

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Photograph of unknown person shown against his name
Expresses concern over delay in preparation of voter identity cards

NEW DELHI: The Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, Jagdish Mukhi, is a concerned man these days. While his photo-identity card bears his correct name and photograph, in the electoral rolls that are being revised nowadays a photograph of an unknown person has been shown against his name. And this has left him wondering if he would even be allowed to vote.

Moreover, he is also worried about how the elections would be held with the new electoral rolls when the names in a large number of cases do not match the photographs and in some cases photographs of people of the opposite sex have been placed against the names of the voters.

“The election ID card I have been possessing for the past many years bears my photograph, but in the electoral rolls the photograph of some other person has been shown against my name,” he said on Friday, adding that he has written to Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswamy to point out various anomalies in the matter.

In his letter, Prof. Mukhi has mentioned that in the MCD elections held last year voters were allowed to vote only on the basis of voter identity cards. It was observed in that election that lakhs of voters could not cast their vote because they could not be issued the voter identity cards.

During the Budget Session of the Delhi Assembly, Prof. Mukhi said the Chief Minister and most of the MLAs had expressed concern over the delay in preparation of voter identity cards. Stating that as per the directions of the Election Commission the coming Assembly elections would be held on the basis of the electoral rolls Prof. Mukhi said “it is a matter of regret that Draft Electoral Roll issued by the Chief Electoral Office to the booth level officers has 75 per cent wrong photographs in front of the name of the voters.”

Pointing out that booth level officers had been re-assigned the job of issuing voters identity cards by May 15, he said it was again a matter of regret that despite the lapse of one month in most parts of Delhi the process was yet to be started and the citizens were running from pillar to post for their voter identity cards.

“If the process of issue of voter identity card moves at this pace, the process of issue of voter identity cards and electoral rolls with photographs of the voter will not be completed till the next Delhi Assembly elections,” Prof. Mukhi said.

He has also complained that in the Draft Electoral Rolls published by the Chief Electoral Officer a large number of Bangladesh nationals have got their names incorporated by means of forged documents

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