Mumbai edit: The ghosts who vote

A man living with his 18 sons in a bar; a locality where each house has more than 30 residents of different religions; 70 people, of different castes and religions but sharing the same father, living, where else but in a bar; 354 residents in a complex of 14 flats — or 25 people per flat; 500 people living in a non-existent colony; and 919 people living in a supermarket! This theatre-of-the-absurd production is playing in Mira-Bhayander, going by the voter list.

While on the one hand you have politicians like Raj Thackeray demanding that the homeless not be enrolled as voters because they pose a ‘security threat’ to the city, on the other you have such spectacularly comical enumeration that you wonder whether to laugh or cry.

That this is not just a farce, but something far more sinister becomes clear when you learn that a majority of these ghost voters do not possess any authorised photo identity cards. Even if it is just our cynicism that smells something fishy here, and this is harmless oversight, there is still cause for concern. While such instances may elicit a chuckle, they are no laughing matter. An accurate voter list is the bedrock of a functioning democracy. If that very list is unreliable or, worse, doctored, then the whole exercise that follows — the polling, the results, the bodies formed by those elected, the laws laid down by them — loses sanctity.
While the high praise our electoral authorities are showered with after every election is well deserved, the Election Commission should not think its job begins or ends with peaceful voting on poll day. The process starts much earlier, with the enrolment of voters. If this foundation remains shaky, the entire democratic edifice may come crumbling down.