Thousands of voters were unable to exercise their franchise in Karimnagar Assembly segment on Friday as their names were missing in the voters list.
There were several discrepancies in the voters list as well. Ironically, the list had the names of dead persons, while names of persons alive were missing. Some of the voters’ names were mentioned twice with different pictures. There was also discrepancy in allotment of polling booths to voters. For a four-member family, all the four persons were allocated different polling booths spread across various locations in the town.
A housewife, S. Manjula of polling station number 163 found her name was removed from the list. But Juvvadi Mangabhai, who was dead long back, was included in the list. Bank employee Narsinga Rao’s name was included in the list, but his wife’s name had another woman’s picture. A voter J. Shanthi Swarup Raj’s name was included in the voters list four times. Bhumeshwar Rao, a voter from Doctors street, said that the names of his family members, eight in number, were missing in the voters list. Besides, majority of voters had not been given the voters’ slips.
A retired teacher, Nagamohan said that his wife was given voters slip while he wasn’t. But searching the website he could locate his name in the list and went hunting for the polling booth across five locations to cast his vote.
Election Watch district convenor N. Srinivas alleged that more than 40,000 voters list were missing from Karimnagar Assembly segment due to inefficiency on the part of the officials concerned.
Rasta roko staged
Adilabad Special Correspondent writes: Polling in the 10 Assembly constituencies in erstwhile composite Adilabad district was peaceful on Friday but for the protests by people who found their names missing from electoral rolls. In Adilabad town, about 100 persons from different localities whose names were missing from the list staged a rasta roko at the Collectorate chowk for about an hour demanding a chance to vote, as traffic flow stood obstructed for some time.
Officials said that they were given ample time to verify if their names were present in the list. Missing names in the list were also reported from constituencies in Kumram Bheem Asifabad, Mancherial and Nirmal districts.
In the Pochampalli polling station, voters thrashed a student who was webcasting inside the polling station for asking voters to cast their votes in favour of a particular candidate. The Bhainsa town police booked a case against Mudhole constituency Congress candidate Rama Rao Patel, who had entered the Market area polling station wearing the party kanduva.
Polling started at a dull note owing to the cold and foggy conditions in the morning. The polling percentages at 9 am recorded at Asifabad (ST) was 8.5, Sirpur 7.9, Adilabad 10.6, Boath 9, Chennur (SC) 12, Bellampally (SC) 11.6, Mancherial 10.06. Khanapur (ST) 8.58, Mudhole 8.32 and Nirmal 12.27.
Majority of constituencies recorded lesser polling percentage compared to the last election in 2014. Mancherial recorded 54% polling against the 65.45 in 2014 while Chennur recorded 67% against the 73%. Similarly, Bellampally recorded 72.15% polling against the 74.34 of 2014 and Boath (ST) recorded 85.38 % against the 80.73 of last election. Only Adilabad recorded an increase by almost 12%.