233 People In 1 House? Residents Flag 'Error' In Gorakhpur Draft Voter List

There is a 'house' in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur where 233 people live, according to data captured during the draft special intensive revision (SIR) exercise. The residents include families from different communities including Hindu, Muslim and Sikh.

A local BJP councillor said the obvious mistake should have been corrected, but because of this discrepancy voters would be made to go through a lot of inconvenience. Some of the families said it is the responsibility of the Election Commission to ensure accurate data capture.

The voter roll clean-up exercise's draft list for this UP district bordering Nepal was released on January 6. The list does not have the names of 6.45 lakh people as the data captured during the SIR exercise determined them ineligible. The window for objections and claims is open till February 6.

In Gorakhpur's ward No. 16, the draft voter list mentioned the names of 233 people living in a single house. Similar instances have been reported from other wards too. The residents said it is the EC's mistake and should be corrected as soon as possible.

A detailed look at the data showed that in the voter list from this ward, there are 233 people (serial No. 377 to 610) living in house No. 617.

The names that are registered under the same house number include Javed, Razzaq, Sudarshan Singh, Garima Singh, Mahfooz, Hashmi, and Shahnawaz.

"If over 200 names from different communities are recorded as living in the same house, then it is possible that the names of people living in the entire locality may have been linked to this house," local councillor Rishi Mohan Verma said.

Verma has been going from door to door to spread awareness about errors in the draft SIR list, and asking people to file for corrections.

Four of the residents - Prashant Rathore, Chandra Kant, Shahnawaz, and Jaiprakash - said they filled the house number, address, name, and everything else correctly and let officials check the data for final recording. But the officials never rectified any errors, the residents said.

"There is negligence somewhere, and the data should be corrected. This error has existed since the last SIR in 2003. We hoped it would be corrected this time, but it didn't happen," a resident said.

According to the councillor, there is no building with the number "617" in ward No. 16. He said the names seemed to have been mixed with houses in other wards and even assembly constituencies.

"There were similar discrepancies in the 2003 list as well. At that time, more than 550 names from the colony were registered," he said.

For now, the residents have no choice but to fill the enumeration forms again and stand in queue for corrections.

The councillor said 100 per cent voting can be achieved if the EC makes accurate voter lists.

"An accurate voter list is important because there are many people who voted in 2022 and 2024, and now those names have been removed. Improvements should have been made after this, but they weren't. Now is the time for objections. We are going door-to-door, setting up camps, raising awareness among people, and advising them to fill out the correction forms," the councillor said.

The Gorakhpur matter comes days after former Indian Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash (retired) suggested the forms of the SIR exercise should be revised if they are unable to reflect information given by people.

The comment came after the EC asked Admiral Prakash to attend a meeting where he would need to prove his identity, as part of the voter roll clean-up exercise.

Many people on social media criticised the EC over what they pointed out was a huge mistake. During Admiral Prakash's 40-year career, he commanded a carrier-borne fighter-squadron, a naval air station and four warships, including the aircraft-carrier INS Viraat.

With inputs from Abrar Ahmed