DNA
Mumbai, Dec 7: The DNA expose on bogus voter cards literally set the cat among the pigeons on Thursday. Officials of the electoral office wasted little time in seizing the laptops from the school where the racket originated.
Later, chief electoral officer of Maharashtra, Debashish Chakrabarty conceded that the voter ID card obtained by DNA from Dharavi on Wednesday was indeed `bogus’.
“It appears that a parallel system is operating alongside the official machinery of the election commission of India,” he said. What is even more bizarre is that the card with DNA belonged to a woman voter who had already got one the previous day!
Chakrabarty said that the voter ID card could not be prepared without accessing the database.
The issue has now reached cancerous proportions now. DNA stumbled upon another development in a wastepaper mart!
Application forms for photo identity and duplicate ID cards intended for certain voters of the Sion area never reached them. Instead bundles of these forms found their way to a wastepaper mart in Sion.
Chakrabarty reiterated that investigations would be carried out. “We will check with the people whose names are on these forms if they received any intimation.’’ Joint CEO, Shekhar Channe said a voter with a bogus card could fill up Form 6 for inclusion of his name.
Chetan Mehta, a resident of a society at Sion said that he had asked his neighbours to get voter ID cards at a municipal school in Sion Koliwada. However, there were no address verification forms and a massive search had to be made of the voter lists.
If one wanted to make any corrections in their cards or in the list, they had to pay Rs25 and fill up Form 8 on their own. If they wanted a receipt, they were told that the card would reach them in two but half the time without a receipt.
Similarly, Rekha Kale who also lives in Sion said that she had not received any address verification form from the EC. “I am aware that the revision of electoral rolls is on. Possibly, somebody palmed off the form meant for me,” she said.