Denied voting, residents protest in Sion

There was utter chaos at Sion after hundreds of voters were denied to exercise their franchise as their names were missing from the list.

"I strongly believe that elections have been rigged and close to 4,500 voters in the Sion area have been denied voting rights deliberately. The numbers may be much higher. I wonder how the voting percentage suddenly increased. We wanted to ensure everybody voted, but the electoral department has denied us this right," said Manish Sheth, a member of the Sion Welfare Forum.

According to Sheth, Kedar Degvekar, another resident of Sion, was staying at the same location and building for the last three generations and his name was missing from the voters' list.

Shyam Apte, another resident of Sion, alleged that the polling station officials were bringing in large number of labourers on the pretext of carrying the ballot unit boxes several times. They were just given plain tags and they got them inside the polling booths. We suspect that they were used for bogus voting for a particular candidate. They were brought in tempos and taken back twice in a span of two hours," said Apte.

Lata Jain, another resident, said, "I and three of my family members had voted at the same location, but this time, my name was missing."

"Several voters had obtained photo identity cards recently from the same addresses, but their names were not found in the voters' list. This is surprising," said another resident.