Some of India’s rich and famous find their names deleted from the voter’s list

• As the first day of polling for India’s general elections drew to a close, a number of glitches came to light.
  
• While multiple constituencies around India reported problems with electronic voting machines (EVM), some voters weren’t able to vote at all because their names had been struck off the list.
  
• R C Bhargava, the chairman of Maruti Suzuki, said that his name had been deleted from the voter list when he went to vote on Thursday.
  
  

As the first day of polling for India’s general elections drew to a close, a number of glitches came to light.

While multiple constituencies around India - especially in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh reported problems with the Election Commission’s electronic voting machines (EVM), a more pressing problem came to light: Some voters weren’t able to vote at all because their names had either been struck off the list or weren’t on the list at all.

While on a call with CNBC regarding retail sales, R C Bhargava, the chairman of Maruti Suzuki, said that his name had been deleted from the voter list when he went to vote on Thursday.

Bhargava said he would seek clarification from the EC regarding the name deletion, explaining that he had cast a vote from the very same polling booth in Noida for Uttar Pradesh’s state assembly elections in 2017.

Other names have also been missing from the electoral roll. Shobana Kamineni, the vice chairman of Apollo Hospitals, said that her name had also been deleted, calling yesterday her “"worst day as an Indian citizen".

Even Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the chairman of Biocon, said that her mother’s name had been deleted off the voter’s list in her Karnataka constituency without any verification of whether she still lived at her home or not.

This raises the question. If even prominent personalities such as the chairman of India’s largest carmaker or one of the country’s largest hospital chains are being denied a chance to vote, what of the tens of millions of voters who lack the same amount of clout?


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The first day of voting in India is dotted with glitches in the electronic voting machines