‘Ram ne Yadav ko maara, B.Com’: Bizarre entries in voter list for UP MLC polls

Uttar Pradesh MLC polls saw bizarre voter list entries such as ‘Ram ne Yadav ko maara’ and ‘B.Com’ in the father’s name column, prompting a probe.

From ‘Ram ne Yadav ko maara’ and ‘Ram ne Sharma ko maara’ to ‘B.Com’, the father’s name column in the Allahabad-Jhansi graduate constituency’s voter list has thrown up bizarre entries during the Uttar Pradesh MLC polls, prompting chief electoral officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa to seek an explanation from officials and clarify how the errors crept into the electoral rolls.

Rinwa sought a report from the divisional commissioners of Jhansi and Prayagraj, who are the electoral registration officers (EROs) for the legislative council constituency in question. He said action would be taken against erring officials based on the findings of the report.

Polling was held on Friday for 11 biennial Uttar Pradesh legislative council seats, including five graduate and six teacher constituencies.

District officials were directed to ensure that voters did not face any inconvenience because of errors in their fathers’ names in the voter list and were allowed to exercise their franchise.

Rinwa said online registration was introduced for the first time to add names to the electoral rolls for legislative council elections in Uttar Pradesh. The software was designed to translate names entered in English into Hindi but, in some cases, produced incorrect results.

For instance, if a voter’s name was Ramhit Yadav but it was mistakenly entered as “Ram hit Yadav”, the software translated it into “Ram ne Yadav ko maara”, the UP CEO clarified.

“The software had a provision to edit and correct such errors, but they persisted where voters failed to verify their entries. However, entering ‘B.Com’ in the father’s name column amounted to negligence, and electoral registration officers should have corrected such entries,” Rinwa said.

District election officers in the districts falling under the Allahabad-Jhansi constituency function as assistant electoral registration officers (AEROs) and are responsible for ensuring that voter lists are free of errors. The divisional commissioners have been directed to submit reports on the lapses, after which action will be taken against the officials concerned, he said.

A total of 152 candidates are in the fray for the MLC polls, for which voting began at 8 am and concluded at 4 pm across 2,697 polling stations in 72 districts. A total of 14,81,310 voters were eligible to exercise their franchise, with 12,309 polling personnel deployed across the 11 constituencies.

Rajesh Kumar Singh is Assistant Editor, Hindustan Times, at the political bureau in Lucknow. An Alumnus of Ramjas College, Delhi and the University of Delhi, he has covered politics in the Hindi heartland Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for three decades and has written extensively on Dalit and OBC politics. He travelled across Uttar Pradesh to cover the panchayat, assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Along with writing on development issues, governance and public policy has done crime reporting, including Maoist activities in Bihar as well as activities of gangsters in East Uttar Pradesh, Jungle Party gang active on UP- Bihar border, dacoit gangs in Bundelkhand region and Sand Mafia active in various districts of UP. Has done investigations and reporting exposing multi-crore NRHM scam in UP, Nutrition scam, Medicine supply scam, irregularities in the flood management projects, weapon smuggling and human trafficking on Indo- Nepal border. He highlighted the deaths of children due to encephalitis in the districts of East Uttar Pradesh; the central and state government took cognisance of the report to launch schemes to check deaths and improve the facilities in the health centres and hospitals. He also reported on the social issues in East Uttar Pradesh and Bundelkhand- migration, farming crisis, water crisis, plight of the deprived communities- Musahar, Vantongiyas, Sahariya and Kol communities. He covers state government departments. He also travels to write human-interest stories and in-depth stories from the ground in the Bundelkhand, Purvanchal, and Rohilkhand regions of Uttar Pradesh.Read More