Lucknow civic polls: Many voters return home disappointed after not finding their names on electoral list

LUCKNOW Even after flipping through the pages of the electoral list for several minutes, thousands of voters couldn’t find their names on it. Eventually, they had to return home disappointed. Such cases were reported from wards across Lucknow during the polling for municipal elections on Thursday.

Former additional director of the education department, Lalita Pradeep, who wasn’t allowed to exercise her franchise, said, “My son Tanmay and I couldn’t cast our vote as our names were missing from the electoral list. This came as a shock to me as I exercised my voting rights in the civic elections held in 2017. A number of other people also faced a similar dilemma. I sent my driver to go through all the voter lists but our names were not there. It is indeed very sad.”

A resident of Jankipuram, Kartikay Shukla, who works with an NGO, said he was also not allowed to vote as his name was missing from the electoral list. “I voted in the 2019 general elections and 2022 Vidhan Sabha polls. I have a voter ID and have participated in elections in the past. I wonder why my name went missing this time.”

Rakesh Kumar, BLO at a polling station in Bhawanipur at BKT, said that there are four villages in Ward 1 and the total voting strength was 2,900. Of these, over 400 names were either missing or names were incorrect. Mohd Zaid, a resident of Sheesh Mahal near Hussainabad, said that his name and that of his four family members were not present on the voter’s list. He checked for his name at a few nearby polling stations but could not find it anywhere.

Struck with the same dilemma, Mohammad Awesh, a Bakshi-Ka-Talab resident, who had come to cast his vote at BKT Inter College, said, “I exercised my franchise in the 2017 civic polls and later, in the assembly polls. This time, I could not find my name here.” Significantly, about 40% of the 3,300 residents associated with this polling booth could not find their names on the list. Area resident Anshu Hussain said that while he was able to cast his vote, his wife couldn’t due to an official gaffe. He added that his wife’s maiden name from 15 years ago had featured on the list but the title added to her name after marriage was not there.

Hussainabad-resident Sartaj Ahmad and his 18-member family also faced the same problem. The names of most of his family members were missing from the list. At Unity College too, voters faced a similar conundrum. Voters claimed that the list used for the election was old and had not been revised.

A similar glitch prevented a prominent citizen from casting his vote as well. “I spent about an hour at a polling station in Mall Avenue. They went through the list but didn’t find my name,” said the person, who did not wish to be identified.