Mumbai: Civil Society Organisations Allege Discrepancies In Election Process

Alleging multiple discrepancies in the election process, various civil society organisations have claimed that a lot of voters in Mumbai found their names missing in the voter list and its victims are mostly from the marginalised communities. These organisations will write to all the presiding officers to carry out their counting duty by pledging upon the constitution.

Seven civil society organisations have come together raising concerns against the election process of the undergoing parliamentary elections. Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, Bombay Catholic Sabha, Forum Against Oppression of Women, Lok Morcha, Maharashtra Democratic Forum, People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Vote For Democracy had met the Maharashtra chief electoral officer and the Additional Chief Electoral Officer on two different days to convey their concerns but alleged that none of them were solved by the officials.

At a press conference organised on Friday, these organisations claimed that multiple voters found their names missing on the day of polling, EVMs malfunctioned, power outages slowed down the polling process and the names of voters from housing societies under redevelopment were missing. The organisations also alleged that most of the victims of missing names from the voter’s list belonged to the minority communities, indicating a deliberate attempt to delete the names of voters.

Ulka Mahajan, state convenor of Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, said, “We had anticipated long back that many names will be missing from the list. We tried to enrol those people back to the list but the election commission did not provide any notice to the people whose names were being removed. During our meeting, the election officer had assured us that we will be able to check the deleted names at the polling booth but it was not provided on ground."

The collective of these civil society organisations have launched an initiative ‘Voters’ Will Must Prevail’, and demanded that the Maharashtra state election commission should release Form 17C and Form B describing the total number of votes polled per constituency. It also demanded that the steps taken against model code of conduct violations should be made public, missing voters should be reregistered and the electoral roll should be cleared of deceased voters.

Teesta Setalvad, member of Vote For Democracy, said, “While the working of the election commission is problematic, we have planned to write letters to all the IAS officers serving as presiding officers to pledge upon the constitution that they will carry out their election duty according to the constitution.”

Tushar Gandhi, activist and great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, said, “The voting process seemed extremely slow and I as a senior citizen took 45 minutes to cast my vote. My son’s gender and surname were changed, due to which he could not cast his vote. Similarly, around 60 people at my booth found their names to be missing from the voter’s list.”