Empathise with Jwala Gutta, will rectify the situation: Chief electoral officer

The Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana has said that the name of ace badminton player Jwala Gutta has been missing from the electoral roll since 2016. Hours after Jwala Gutta raised the issue of her name missing from the voter list, electoral officer Rajat Kumar said that the issue would be rectified.

“I do empathise with her. Actually, her name has been missing from electoral roll since 2016. So, in 2016, 2017, 2018, the inclusion was not there. We will rectify that situation,” said the chief electoral officer of the state.

Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha also reacted on the issue names missing or getting repeated in electoral rolls, saying the Election Commission would undertake the required exercise after conclusion of Assembly elections 2018.

“Door-to-door visit was held for cases where names were deleted. Some complaints have still come for some names that are missing or for multiple entries. For this, EC will undertake exercise after conclusion of polls. Especially, these cases were from Hyderabad city,” he said.

Earlier on Friday as the polling was conducted in Telangana, the shuttler posted a video message on microblogging site Twitter, raising questions on her name missing from the list.

“I checked my name online two to three weeks ago, my mother's and my names were there. My father's and my sister's were missing. Today we went to cast vote but my name was also missing. I don't understand how's my name missing. I've been living here for 12 years,” she said.

She had also tweeted “Surprised to see my name disappear from the voting list after checking online!! “How’s the election fair...when names r mysteriously disappearing from the list!!”

The polling for Telangana Assembly elections was held on Friday and the counting of votes will take place on December 11. It is a multi-corner contest in Telangana with parties like Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Telugu Desam Party, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the fray.