Telangana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Rajat Kumar confessed to some ‘mistakes’ in the poll process – mainly in the preparation of voters’ list – even as many VIPs including retired badminton ace Jwala Gutta and a senior IPS officer cried foul complaining that their names had been missing from the voters’ list, thus ridding them a chance to exercise their franchise and discharge their democratic duty.

Even commoners who had been voting for years in the past claimed that their names were missing in the voters’ list kept at the booths where they used to cast votes easily for the past several years.  “On our part, we did everything, asked voters to ask for and fill up Form 7 to ensure that their names are not missed out.  I’m sorry that many voters didn’t consciously go through this exercise,” Kumar said.

Kumar said he had taken cognizance of the several complaints which said that names had been ‘deleted’ purposely from the voters’ list during Friday’s polling in Telangana when people across the State voted to elect its second Legislative Assembly.  “Electoral roll revision hadn’t been carried out with proper care and attention,” was the crux of the complaints of many voters who were eligible to vote but couldn’t do so.

Gutta, aghast that her name was missing from the voters’ list, later took to social networking site by tweeting that she was mightily surprised to see her name ‘disappearing’ from the voters’ list.  CEO Kumar has said that he would procure a report from the polling official in-charge of the election booth from where Ms. Gutta was supposed to have cast her vote.

IPS officer T. Krishna Reddy took to Twitter and Facebook accounts to post his sad story of getting deprived voting rights as his name too was missing from the list.