From ‘Ram ne Yadav ko maara’ and ‘Ram ne Sharma ko maara’ to ‘B.Com’, the father’s name column in the Allahabad-Jhansi graduate constituency’s voter list has thrown up bizarre entries during the Uttar Pradesh MLC polls, prompting chief electoral officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa to seek an explanation from officials and clarify how the errors crept into the electoral rolls.
A total of 152 candidates are in the fray for the MLC polls, for which voting began at 8 am and concluded at 4 pm across 2,697 polling stations in 72 districts. A total of 14,81,310 voters were eligible to exercise their franchise, with 12,309 polling personnel deployed across the 11 constituencies. Because of errors in their fathers’ names in the voter list and were allowed to exercise their franchise, district officials were directed to ensure that voters did not face any inconvenience.
“The software had a provision to edit and correct such errors, but they persisted where voters failed to verify their entries. District election officers in the districts falling under the Allahabad-Jhansi constituency function as assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) and are responsible for ensuring that voter lists are free of errors.
However, entering ‘B.Com’ in the father’s name column amounted to negligence, and electoral registration officers should have corrected such entries,” Rinwa said. The divisional commissioners have been directed to submit reports on the lapses, after which action will be taken against the officials concerned, he said.
Rinwa sought a report from the divisional commissioners of Jhansi and Prayagraj, who are the electoral registration officers (EROs) for the legislative council constituency in question.
He said action would be taken against erring officials based on the findings of the report.
