Ace shuttler Jwala Gutta was among the people who complained on Friday that they were unable to vote in as their names were missing from the voters' list.
Amid reports that many people who turned up to vote in Telangana Assembly elections on Friday found their names missing from the electoral rolls, state's election body chief on Saturday issued an apology and assured that special measures will be taken next time.
Around 22 lakh votes were deleted from electoral rolls, but 12 lakh new voters were added, bringing down the number of voters in Telangana.
Earlier in October, the then Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat had justified deletion of voters saying the Election Commission used the latest technology to purify the electoral rolls during special revision. The poll panel said the names of those with multiple entries, those who migrated and those who were dead were deleted from the rolls.
Ace shuttler Jwala Gutta was among the people who complained on Friday that they were unable to vote as their names were missing from the voters' list.
“Those who have been denied to vote, I apologise to them. The next time we will take special measures regarding this. We will look at where names were missing,” Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar said on Saturday.
Addressing the media, the CEO said the poll body will take up a revision exercise to rectify the error.
"We put out a lot of advertisements that people should ask for Form 7 and enrol. But I am sorry not everyone was able to use it," he said.
Anyone who finds that their name is inadvertently deleted or not added is asked to enrol using Form 7.
Kumar also apologised to Ms Gutta, “I personally would like to apologize to Jwala Gutta. It is not correct, not only for her, every citizen they have a right to be enrolled.”
"Actually, her name has been missing from electoral roll since 2016. So, in 2016, 2017, 2018, the inclusion was not there. We will rectify that situation," he said.
Gutta had said that her name was found in the voters' list around one month ago but it was missing when she went to vote.
"I had checked (name) and then only went today (to vote) and my name was missing. My point is, my father and sister's names have been missing since the time we checked online," the badminton star said in a video message on Twitter.
An IPS officer was also among those who said their name was not found on the voters' list.
"Today, I went to the polling station only to be told that my name is not there in the voters' list in spite of having a Voter ID card issued by ECI and a verification. I returned home dejected. My Right to vote has been denied. Thanks to Election Commission," senior police officer T Krishna Prasad wrote on Twitter.
Prasad is the DGP and Chairman of Road Safety Authority, Telangana.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission on Saturday revised the voter turnout number saying that 73.2% crore voters cast their ballots in Telangana on Friday. The poll panel had yesterday said that an estimated 67% of voters had voted in the assembly elections.
The exit polls on Friday have predicted a win for TRS saying that caretaker Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is likely to retain power.
The counting of votes would be taken up on December 11.
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