Polling for the high-profile Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections began at 7:30 am on Thursday, Jan. 15. But the voting process was marred by multiple technical and administrative shortcomings, according to reports.
Many voters complained of difficulties in downloading voter slips and locating their names at polling booths despite being registered voters. Many alleged that the Maharashtra State Election Commission's website showed “data not available,” leaving them stranded at help desks set up outside polling stations, reported Lokmat Times.
People, on social media, have also criticised the authorities for the system failure on voting day.
Voters Flag Missing Names, Website Outages
NCP-SP national spokesperson Anish Gawande described the situation as chaotic, claiming that voters were forced to manually search through printed electoral rolls due to the website outage. He also alleged booth mergers and name transfers, stating that members of his family were assigned to different polling stations.
Gawande's post read, “Across Maharashtra, voters are unable to find their names on physical voter lists. Websites are all down. Booths have been merged. Names have been shifted. My name is on one booth, and my parents are on another booth in a fully separate location. What a goddamn shame. Disgusting.”
In another post, Gawande criticised the Maharashtra election authorities, claiming that the voter list website crashed on polling day. He wrote, “Absolute circus: http://mahasecvoterlist.in crashed when Mumbai needs it most. Voters in Mumbai are stuck at polling booths, hunting for names in dusty printed lists like it's 1995. This is Digital India? @MaharashtraSEC, fix your website or stop pretending we're in the 21st century!”
Gawande also claimed that permanent marker votes could be wiped off with hand sanitiser. “Permanent markers, not indelible ink, are used to mark your vote. Wiped off with hand sanitiser. Names missing from voter lists, shifted to different booths. Confusion as people try to find names on paper lists because websites are down. Welcome to the world's largest democracy,” he said.
Other users echoed similar concerns. One user wrote, “A total joke and mess of Mumbai BMC elections. Names are missing & wrong names in the list. No accountability. All the servers are down. People with Voter Ids & Aadhar cards are sent back. How the hell are we supposed to vote?”
A person claimed that none of the residents of their entire building in the Parel area had their names on the voter list, even though everyone had voted in the Assembly election.
Tagging the state election commission, a man questioned the system failure, saying, “Why is your website not working. Unable to get the voter list details for the BMC elections.”
Statewide Voting Under Way
Elections are being held across 29 municipal corporations in Maharashtra, with a total of 3.48 crore voters eligible to decide the fate of 15,931 candidates. The spotlight remains on the BMC, India's wealthiest civic body, where 1,700 candidates are contesting 227 seats in polls taking place after a four-year delay. In Mumbai, the elections have drawn attention for the high-profile contest between the Thackeray brothers, reuniting after 20 years to reclaim their political heritage, and the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. Counting of votes is scheduled for Friday, January 16.
According to NDTV, voter turnout remained low in the Maharashtra civic body polls, with only 17.73% of voters having cast their votes till 11:30 am.
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