Four lakh more voters despite missing names

Mumbai: Though the Shiv Sena has cried foul over the ‘deletion of 10 lakh names from the voters’ list’, the state Election Commission (EC) has claimed that, in fact, an additional four lakh voters exercised their franchise this year compared to 2012. The EC has said that the deletion or addition of names was done by the Election Commission of India and not by the state. State election commissioner J.S. Saharia, however, said that he would take up the issue with the EC.

“In 2012, 46 lakh voters had voted in the BMC polls while on Tuesday, 50 lakh voters exercised their right. It is true that in 2012, there were 1.02 crore voters were registered in Mumbai while till January 5, 2017, the voter tally came to 92 lakh. The list has come to us from the EC. We do not make any changes at the state level in the list, but conduct an awareness campaign,” Mr Saharia said. Voters and Shiv Sena lambasted the state election commission on Tuesday for the missing names of voters. Many voters’ names that were missing this time were on the list for the 2014 Assembly polls.

Conceding the fact that the delimitation changed the wards of a few voters, Mr Saharia lamented that they did not respond to the awareness campaign conducted by the state election commission. “We conducted the campaign between September 16 and October 21 but people didn’t come. The registration of voters is a continuous process. We had given time to the voters before the BMC poll to avoid inconvenience at the last minute. I agree that a few have not found their names in the list post-delimitation. It is a mistake but the names were there,” he added.

Mr Saharia said that Maharashtra’s polling position is the best. “We used the voters’ list given by the EC. We do not delete or add names. I cannot say why their names were deleted. But Maharashtra’s voters’ list is the best in the country.