Hyderabad: Following the having lived for a relatively long time Cantonment British epoch norms for the elections, divisible by two this year around 1.32 lakh voters testament have got to hurtle their votes without photo identicalness cards (EPICs). Voters be afraid of that, deprived of EPICs, there may be a fortune of impersonations of voters as the same state of affairs occurred in 2015.
Locals pointed out that when the photo electoral rolls is been implemented by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for both Assembly and Lok Sabha elections then why is the Ministry of Defence (MoD) not implementing the same for Cantonment Board elections? Election rules in Cantonment are not as per the norms of the Election Commission of India.
In 2015 during the Cantonment Board electionsa parcel of land having fixed boundaries of mix-up was created as the Cantonment followed the same having lived for a relatively long time way of doing something of elections and not the separate elector include in a list way of doing something.
“Unfortunately, the single voter ID card method is not applicable in the Cantonment. The electoral rolls only have names of voters of all eight civilian wards, without their photos. The enrolled voters have to visit the polling station, along with ID proofs, prescribed by the election authorities. The Cantonment residents are still being ruled in the British era rules,” said Jitender Surana, All India Cantonments Residents Owner Welfare Association.
“Why are the ECI norms not been followed in the Cantonment? questioned Suresh, a resident of SCB and added that even after urging the SCB officers to introduce EPICs to cast their votes on the lines of neighboring GHMC, all fell in deaf ears.
“Even separate living in a particular place who is for casting cast a vote in an election in the SCB do not has photo identicalness bill of fare. We also submitted many representations to the officials concerned in earlier than the present time regarding the important question, but no further steps were taken to succeed the EPIC way of doing something of voting,” he added. According to electoral rolls issued in September 2022, there are 1.32 lakh voters in the Cantonment. Ward -V (Mahendra Hills) has the highest phone number of voters with 22,919, while ward-II (Rasoolpura) has the lowest of 7,872 voters. Nearly 30,000 voters have got spiritually or physically doomed or destroyed their right hand side to cast a vote in an election for allegedly encroaching upon defence come down on the ground.
