Missing names irk voters

Varun Gandhi and Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit called the election office to check whether their names existed in the voters list.

Updated on: May 10, 2004, 10:25:00 IST

PTI | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Varun Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit called the election office on Sunday to check whether their names existed in the voters list. They were lucky to find their names in the rolls. However, about 20 per cent of a whopping 23,000 callers so far have found their names missing.

The denial of the right to vote may upset citizens, but for some it was a chance for a three-day sojourn to hill stations. "I was angry when election office told me that my family was not enlisted. But then my wife told me that we can go to Nainital for a holiday. I agreed immediately," said Munirka resident Vikram Hari.

Others like Rajan Tiwari rather came out strongly. "I can't understand how my name got deleted. I had voted in the last Assembly elections in December. Only ruffians can vote, law-abiding citizens can't," he said.

Ramesh Dixit of Asiad Village cancelled his programme to attend a marriage in Gwalior to exercise franchise. "When I didn't get a voter's slip from party workers I called the election office. They told me that I can't cast my vote. I asked for reasons but they said my name will be added in the list only after elections," he added.

Balkan Bhartee of Saket was amused that he can't vote though has been the Capital's resident for the past 30 years. Somesh Kumar of the same locality says denial of voting rights shows how political activists can hoodwink the system. Dina Nath of Patparganj may lose the chance to vote for first time since 1970.

The VIPs are not affected by the common man's dilemma. Varun Gandhi will go with mother Maneka to cast his vote at Girls Polytechnic in Maharani Bagh while Dikshit will accompany Congress president Sonia Gandhi to College of Arts at Tilak Marg.

President APJ Abdul Kalam will be the first person to cast his vote at a booth at President House.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Check India news real-time updates, latest news on Hindustan Times and more across India.