Siliguri (West Bengal), April 23 (IANS) A first-time voter in Siliguri, who had eagerly gone to the polling booth to exercise her franchise in the first phase of the West Bengal Assembly elections on Thursday, was downcast as she alleged that somebody else had cast her vote.

Expressing her shock and dismay over the turn of events, Kajal Das said: “What can be more disappointing than this, that I came to cast a vote for the first time and was told upon reaching here that somebody else had already voted in my name.”

Das alleged that it was the mistake of the polling officials at the booth in ward number 24, due to which she missed out on her chance of voting for the first time.

“They have marked a tick against my name because my vote has been cast by someone else because of their (polling officials) mistake. I don’t know what they are doing sitting inside,” she added.

“They are saying that there are two people of my name in this ward. Even if that is the case, there should not be any confusion between the two names,” she added.

Echoing the same complaint, her father, Gopal Das, said: “It was my daughter’s first vote and someone else cast it using her name. We were told to leave, and that nothing could be done now.”

However, he was able to cast his vote.

The father alleged that he was asked to call the District Level Officer. “How am I supposed to call him?” he said.

About steps taken by the Election Commission to delete fake voters, he said: “They (EC) know about all this. We are voters. How do we know about this?”

The Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI), had been one of the most highly debated issues in West Bengal in the run-up to the elections.

The exercise, which was conducted in order to weed out fake or dead voters from the electoral rolls, has led to the deletion of around 89 lakh voters.

–IANS

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