While Mumbaikars stepped out to vote in large numbers, members of 27 families residing in a building at Bhendi Bazaar couldn’t cast their vote as their names were missing from the list.
According to Hindustan Times, the members of 27 families residing in Zainabia building, owned by the Waqf board, went to the polling booth at South Mumbai’s Chor Bazaar on Monday but returned home without voting after they could not find their names in the voters’ list. The residents claimed that they have lived in the building for 65 years but this is the first time they have faced such a hurdle. One of the resident told the leading daily, “We have voted in every election as far back as we remember. We even voted during the municipal corporation elections in 2017, and our names were there on the list at the time.”
The incident came to light when some residents went to the booth at 12 pm and found their names missing from the list. Those residents eventually found out that names from all 27 tenant families were not on the list. Each family has five to seven registered voters, which means around 150 couldn’t vote because their names were missing from the voters’ list.
Maulana Zahur Abbas, chairman of the Waqf board told the leading daily, “When residents of the building went to the polling booth, they did not find their names in the list. We had anticipated this as the area is undergoing a cluster redevelopment – a lot of buildings have been demolished and the tenants are living in transit camps. We had asked them to check their names in the list.”
