New voters in a fix sans voter I-D cards

Quthbullapur: The newly-registered voters of the constituency here are a confused lot, as they are yet to receive their voter I-D cards. They are facing hardships as going to the departments concerned is proving to be a futile exercise in the absence of staff to answer their queries. Some are so frustrated, that they have gone to the extent of assuming that their votes are lost for good. This comes even after a room has been allotted in GHMC office to know NVT number and an officer has been appointed for the purpose. Those manning the office area are allegedly using the installed computers for their personal use.

Yet they have the audacity to avoid those seeking information on voter Ids. The staff, sitting in the concerned department blatantly replies that it is not their duty. On their part, the officials have washed off their hands by putting up a placard on the office door ‘for NVT number - dial 1950’. This sad state of affairs prevails even after the Election Commission conducted a special voter enrolment drive for the benefit of newcomers and those whose names have been deleted from the list following the State division. The drive was taken up after conducting a survey. Sadly, both the commission and the State administration appear to have forgotten to issue voter ID cards to the newly-registered voters.

In this scenario, the officials toured only a few households to hand over polling slips and BLFs in the constituency which has 457 polling station and 516,180 polling slips. Reasons like door locked, migration to villages are being cited for the delay in the distribution of BLFs and slips. Voters are concerned that as the day of polling is fast approaching, whether they would get voter ID cards. Tense, they are making rounds of the GHMC office. Returning Officer Victor told The Hans India that 73,000 voter ID cards of newly-enrolled voters have been received and that BLFs have been told to hand over the cards to houses on Monday.