Hyderabad: Confusion over polling stations leave city voters high and dry

Hyderabad : Voters at several polling stations under Musheerabad and Amberpet Assembly constituencies were found returning without casting their votes. The reason is they could not figure out their polling stations. Speaking to The Hans India, L Naveen Reddy from Amberpet said, "My name was not there in the polling station where I cast my vote earlier. The mobile app for searching and locating his polling station has time and again flashing "No Results".

He said election officials from GHMC used to come home and hand over the voter slips in the last Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. It made it easier for the voters to directly reach their polling stations and cast their votes.

Voching the same and explaining the problems faced, V N Sastry from Chikkadapally said that big flexes were put up at the polling stations, indicating assistance was available for the voters. But, except for the men from different parties with tables issuing the voter slips, there are virtually none visible to help out and guide the voters where they could get their voter slips to cast their votes. "When I called the BLO on a given number, he simply said the polling station number and asked to go and search behind the fever hospital. But, only to be told that I had come to the wrong polling booth after going there."

The voters without voter Identity cards carrying the Aadhar and other valid documents have expressed dismay at police scrutinising them and asked multiple questions at the entry points.

C Deepak, a graduate student said that the police who stopped him were so dumb that they did not know that even the Election Commission had listed several documents like Aadhaar as valid for people to cast their vote. "They were giving a standard reply that they have not got 'any instructions'. When I further pressed, the constable on duty showed a police official and asked me to go and ask him."

Is it election officials concerned, or do police decide on the validity and invalidity of the documents and process of people to vote? He found fault with the EC and its machinery for all such problems faced by the people in the polling stations that resulted in people returning without voting.