Confusion prevails as families separated in list of voters

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 13

They have been staying together for years but suddenly found themselves separated in the voters’ list. While Yashpal Sikka including his wife Radhika Sikka and mother Raj Rani Sikka staying at Pukka Bagh area is a voter from Ward No. 51, the names of his 21-year-old son Raghav and servant Ghanshayam have been enlisted for ward number 50.

“How come a family staying together in the same house has been asked to vote from two different wards? “ asks Raghav, adding that he came to know about it a day back from the Congress candidate of his area.

Not only his, but every second house in the Ward No. 50 and 51 is confused over the voter list. While one house in the same lane is located in Ward No. 50, the next house has been shown in Ward No. 51. More shockingly, a majority of the houses were found to be having names in the voters list of two or more wards.

“The Municipal Corporation (MC) of Jalandhar is witnessing elections since 1991 but it has never ever happened that members of the same house got votes in separate wards. The confusion is there across the city,” said Parampreet Singh Bitti, son of SAD candidate Balwinder kaur from Ward No. 51. Bitti’s nephew stays with him but his got his vote in Ward No. 50 while the remaining family will vote for Ward 51.

“The controversy has been created by the Congress as it has carefully picked and chose the houses of our supporters and pushed them to other wards. As the time is very less, we cannot even follow up the matter as it will otherwise hamper our canvassing,” he said.

The situation is similar in wards 8 and 10. According to former area councillor Balbir Bittu, the Ward No. 11 was divided into Wards 8, 10 and some parts of 12. “Though according to the new delimitation plan, the areas including Ajit Nagar, New Dashmesh Nagar and also Dhilwan were included in ward number 8, the voters list of these areas were found to be printed in ward number 9 and 10. Despite taking up the issue, the returning officer though deleted the list from ward number 10 but did not give any speaking order,” said Bittu. He further added that the returning officer of ward number 8 further refused to add the new voters in the list without getting any written confirmation from the RO of ward number 10.

“It was only on December 11 that I got the list, it was again found to be in ward number 10. When contacted, the officials claimed that the voters have been listed according to the report filed by the BLO but when asked, they refused to show us the report,” said Bittu, adding that over 463 voters though staying in his ward will be voting for the candidate of another ward.

Bittu now has claimed to be approaching Deputy Commissioner Varinder Sharma to get the verification done by a senior official and get an action taken against the errant BLOs.

Meanwhile, DC Varinder Sharma refuted the claims and said that ample opportunities were given to the people to file their objections and speaking order has been issued on every complaint. “They should have challenged the order at that time. Now, voters list cannot be changed at the eleventh hour,” he said, adding that he would review any such objections after the elections are over.

“If any such discrepancy erupts further, the candidates can file an election petition and challenge the elections in the court of law,” he added.