Nagpur graduates' poll: doctor finds vote already cast in his name, says he did not vote

The issue of duplicate voters was already a live one in the election for the Nagpur Division Graduates' Constituency. Now a startling case has surfaced in Nagpur, in which a vote is said to have been cast in place of a duplicate voter before the voter arrived.

The case concerns the polling station at Amit Primary School in the Dighori area of Nagpur. When Dr Prashant Gaikwad went there to vote, staff at the station told him that someone had already voted in his place and left.

When Dr Gaikwad looked at the signature in the register, he realised it belonged to someone else. He told the staff that it was not his signature and that he had not voted at all. An argument initially broke out at the spot.

Gaikwad finally said clearly that he had not voted and that he had no voting ink on his finger. He also asked who had voted in his name. The polling station staff then felt that a mistake had been made somewhere, and allowed Prashant Gaikwad to vote.

Gaikwad has demanded an inquiry into the whole matter. He has also voiced the suspicion that some people may be attempting bogus voting under cover of duplicate voters.

Meanwhile, Congress leader and former minister Nitin Raut made a serious allegation that all the voters whose names BJP workers got registered are on the electoral roll, but many names submitted by Congress workers for registration are not on it. Raut made the allegations after voting in Nagpur today in the graduates' constituency election.

According to Raut, when the names of four members of one family were submitted for registration, only one or two appeared on the roll. The rest were not registered. He said the election machinery has no answer as to why some names were not registered even after identical documents were submitted.

Raut said thousands of duplicate names are on the roll. Even if the election machinery is making voters sign affidavits to ensure that nobody votes twice, it must still be accepted that there is an error in the voter list, he said.

Abhijit Wanjari, the Congress's official candidate, has alleged that 8,500 duplicate names appear on the roll along with his. He described this as a matter of concern.

On Friday, polling day, it also emerged that 22,000 voters had been registered using a single number. Atul Londhe, the Congress's chief spokesperson in the state, said at a press conference that no action was being taken despite repeated complaints to the Election Commission. He asked whether the Election Commission was working for the BJP.