Earlier, it used to be bogus voting and booth capturing. Now, the system has changed. Genuine voters have been denied their right to exercise the franchise. And still, at the end of the day, the EC claims more than 50 per cent polling.

If this is happening in the heart of the State Capital, where watchdogs like print and electronic media are extra vigil, then imagine the plight of commoners in rural and semi-urban areas.

In the name of electoral revision, the EC carried out long, tiring process and deleted the names of more than 40,000 genuine voters, who were seething with rage on Monday at different polling booths. It’s quite possible, that several names would have been omitted of those who have not been residing in the State Capital for long, but then, the EC committed an unpardonable offence by denying those people their voting rights who have their own house and have been residing here for the last three decades.

It’s not only ADG Abhayanand and senior IAS officer Vyasji, I can give you hundreds of such examples of genuine voters who were spewing venom on the poll panel. “Who gave the EC the power to deny me my voting rights. I have been staying in Patna for more than 50 years. But my name was struck off the list, even though I had given my photograph to the teacher who was carrying out electoral revision,” said a visibly angry octogenarian Udit Narayan Choudhary of K-106 in Hanuman Nagar. Not a single member from his unit family could vote on Monday as they found their names “deleted.” Similar was the case with his neighbours Shiv Kumar and Dr Rana Narendra Pratap Singh.

But then, the list of aggrieved voters got lengthier by the evening. Dinesh Kumar and Anshumala Devi (of B-4 Housing Colony, booth No 109) returned disappointed after they found their names have been struck down, though they have their own house and have been staying here for decades.

Similarly, Leela Devi, Mukesh Kumar, Rakesh Kumar and Bhupesh Kumar (booth no 116), found, much to their amusement, that their names have been omitted from the electoral roll.

Just to get a first-hand experience, I went to different booths to see how ‘genuine’ polling was taking place. At booth no 114, I found that around 80 people had voted out of total 890 voters by 12 noon. This means not even 10 per cent. In other booths, the percentage was around 15 per cent by 1 pm. But by the time polling was over at 5 pm, the poll percentage was around 50 per cent. Guess, when there was nearly no voter to exercise his/her franchise in the second-half, how come the ‘ghost voting’ took place.

Just for the information sake of EC, I would like to add that at most of the polling booths, when the staff on duty found that the polling percentage was poor, they did the ‘cover-up’ exercise.

Now, how different is it from bogus voting or booth-capturing which used to take place earlier.
The EC, instead of blowing its trumpet, should give a serious re-thinking about how farce the elections were in Patna, and order a re-poll in the entire State Capital. Or else, people will lose faith in the system. And eventually in democracy!

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The issue which was highlighted by Mr Abhay Kumar ridicules our electoral system and our democracy,s tall claim of  full participation of people in electing their representative. Electronic voting machine has done one thing i e saved the time while counting the votes but as far as fair polling is concerned, system is still emulating the past of booth capturing and bogus voting, electoral reform has given new and quick solution to cover up the low turn out. Earlier activists of political party used to do with the consent of polling officer and that tradition is still going on.

It is unbelievable that election commissio is not aware of such unfair means but what it can do when a section of people discuss politics in drawing room and when time comes to casting votes, cry that their names were deleted from voter list or willingly abstain to go to polling station. Why dont they do planning before election just as political parties make their strategy to win. Democracy looses its characteristics not by unfair means adopted by political parties but the lack of interest shown by people in the system is marring, and then accusing of election commission or the electoral system is ridiculous.

People participation in electoral system guarantee the success of democracy and the representative who are elected, setting aside the genuine way can be hardly expected to work in democratic way.

Mumtaz