Mumbai: Even as the residents of Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar constituency are all set to vote in the civic bypoll slated for January 9, as many as 3,500 voters from its ward number 141 have claimed their names have been masked out of the list with white tape.
The civic ward has a Muslim majority population of 36,000 people and elections were announced after sitting Congress corporator Vithal Lokare resigned on August 2019, as he joined the Shiv Sena and contested the Maharashtra assembly elections. Lokare was defeated by the sitting Samajwadi Party legislator Abu Azmi, by a margin of more than 25,000 votes.
Voter lists were distributed in the local party offices in Mankhurd by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) ward office in the last week of December. Many voters were aghast to find their names missing, despite their having voted in the recent assembly polls.
Meat-seller Ayyub Qureshi, 49, has been residing in Mankhurd-Shivaji Nagar for more than two decades. Till date Ayyub has voted in all the elections without constraints.
But ahead of the civic polls, Ayyub and his entire family - wife Ruksana, daughters Nagma, 24, and Nazia,19, and son Shoaib, 22, found their names on the voter list had been blanked out with white tape for the civic polls.
“Every member of the family has their name blanked out. What is surprising is that we all voted in the recent assembly polls in October,” said Ayyub told The Free Press Journal.
Rosa Khatoon, another resident of ward 141, said although her name was ‘whited out’ of the list, her husband Mohammad Sahabuddin’s name is on it.
Khatoon informed she is a worker of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and found her name missing on Friday afternoon, after the voter lists arrived at the local party office.
“My name is not there in the list, however, my husband’s name is. Most names from the lists have been covered with white tape. It is clear that the names have been intentionally struck off the electoral rolls,” Khatoon stated.
Sixty-year-old Abdul Qureshi said along with his name, that of his wife Harunnis too had been similarly blanked out. The couple has been residing in this civic constituency for three decades and this is the first time they are facing such a problem.
“We have all the government identification documents, our names are shown on the website of the Election Commission of India. But our names have been removed from the final voter list,” said Abdul.
Speaking on the matter, legislator Abu Azmi said those who were not with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are being deprived of their constitutional rights.
Accusing the Election Commission of working on behalf of the Centre, Azmi said, “All those who are resisting the BJP are having their names discarded. When you see the list, it’s clearly evident their names have been removed intentionally”.
Meanwhile on Tuesday afternoon, election in-charge Sangita Hasnale, who is also the assistant commissioner of the BMC’s tree department, was inspecting the wards.
Residents said she told them the mistake had occurred from the BMC’s side and it would be rectified soon. However when this newspaper contacted her, she was not ready to speak on the matter.
“Right now, we have forwarded the objection/suggestion notice to the higher authorities and we will only be able to speak after we get clearance,” Hasnale stated.
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