THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, May 13: Father in- charge of the Shanti ki Rani church here in Daltonganj, Maurice Kujur, 63, was highly distressed and disappointed when he was told by the polling officials at booth number 210 in Daltonganj that his name is deleted from the electoral roll.
Fr Maurice Kujur was curtly told that he couldn’t cast a vote as there was a deletion of his name in the electoral roll.
Fr Maurice Kujur met this correspondent and narrated his sad experiences which he termed as most tragic to the cause of democracy.
Fr Maurice Kujur showed his EPIC voter identity card. His photograph on it was clear and sharp. There was no issue with his photo any blurred.
Back on his voter card, it was written his booth number 210 is at Nawa Toli.
Kujur shows valid proof of identity
Kujur said, “I am alive. I stood before the polling officials and showed my valid proof of identity but I was told my name stands deleted.”
“I was never intimated by the booth-level officer in this regard. ECI has made a provision of intimating to the person whose name is to be deleted. Here it was not done. I was never intimated by the booth level officer about my name to go off from the electoral roll nor I was given any chance to abort my deletion. ”
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How names are deleted?
Deletion of a name is no child’s play or any whim or fancy of the booth level officer the lowest in the rank but it is from booth level officer that initiation of deletion of name starts.
Deletion comes in cases where a person asks for it himself on change of his residential status or change of the assembly constituency.
Again, deletion is when there is an objection raised to it by another elector of the same locale citing reasons beyond doubt which is to be verified and ascertained by the booth-level officer first.
Then it is ASD. It is absent, shifted and dead.
Specimen of cruel injustice, says Kujur
Maurice Kujur said, “I don’t fit into any of these bills. I am neither absent nor shifted nor dead. I am a breathing and living soul. But today I am denied my fundamental right to vote for no fault of mine. This is a specimen of cruel injustice meted out to me.”
Maurice Kujur claimed that he had cast his vote at booth number 210 in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
“In these 5 years how his name was deleted. He had no clue. The booth-level officer has made a foul. This booth-level officer must be asked to explain this misconduct,” said Maurice Kujur.
Circle officer Amardeep Walhotra on being phoned about this case immediately rushed to Maurice Kujur at booth number 210 and heard him very patiently.
Walhotra told this correspondent, “I checked this case with the presiding officer of booth number 210. There is a deletion of the name of Maurice Kujur.”
Walhotra said it is now to be investigated as to how all this happened.
The booth level officer was there at booth number 210 who was speechless for this deletion of the name of Maurice Kujur. She was looking guilty. She admitted she never met Kujur nor she ever tried to find out about his status living or dead or shifted or changed the assembly constituency or got absent etc.
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Maurice Kujur was not only a single case. Here came another woman Kanchan Devi. She too was denied to cast a vote and the reason cited for it was that her name was struck off from the electoral roll!
Eyebrows were raised here in Palamu when the report of little over 41,000 deletions was published in the media.
DC Shashi Ranjan had got worried about this number of 41,000 plus deletions and had ordered the booth-level officers across the district to recover the deletions where it had occurred by mistake.
A large number of the booth-level officers just didn’t care a fig for the order of recovering deletion.
Officials maintain that these two ought to have checked out with the draft publication of the electoral rolls or gone for ‘I am a verified voter’ but these officials also conceded that not even 2 percent of the voters check out with the draft publication of the electoral rolls nor they go for I am a verified voter.
