While there are only nine days left for the city to go to polls, many residents are yet to receive the voters' slip from the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The ECI, in a first such move, has decided to distribute voters' slip to electors. Normally, such a practice is followed by candidates of different political parties. The slips ECI is set to provide will carry names of voters, his/her number of the roll, polling station where s/he is supposed to exercise franchise, besides schedule of the election.
While candidates of political parties in six constituencies in the city have already distributed voters' slips, residents of island city and suburbs are demanding the ECI to do the needful at the earliest.
"Parliamentary constituencies are huge in size. So, it will take a lot of time for the ECI to distribute slips. Residents will prefer to carry slips provided by ECI than the ones distributed by parties," Rajkumar Sharma, a Chembur-based civic activist, said.
Since ECI's slips are going to carry photographs of voters, it can also help curb bogus voting, Sharma added.
"This is why it is important to disburse slips amongst voters as these will help ECI staff at polling stations to know if a voter is genuine or not. The ECI has all the details of the voters. Since it has declared to distribute slips, there must have been some monetary provision. All this money will go waste if voters don't get slips in time," he pointed out.
Harishchandra Pandey, another civic activist from Borivli, too complained that the slips are yet to be distributed in his area. "Besides voters' slips, the new lot of voters is yet to receive identity cards too. The commission took a decision to enroll names of new voters just a month before the polls and that has delayed distribution of identity cards. Now, voters will have to carry with them either of the 11 documents to prove their identities for voting," Pandey said.
A resident of King's Circle and member of city NGO AGNI, Nikhil Desai, added that he has offered the ECI to help it distribute voters' slips.
On asked why the works has not begun, a senior ECI official said the work should get underway soon. "The polling for the third phase is scheduled on April 24. The work of distributing slips has already begun in some parts. It will begin soon in Mumbai. In fact, we have transported slips to centres," he claimed.
There are around 75 lakh voters in Mumbai
Out of these, around 16 lakh voters have not received election identity cards
If one doesn't have ECI's photo identity card, he she can carry these documents to polling stations: Aadhar card; PAN card; passport; service identity cards with photos issued to staffers of central or state government, employees of public sector undertakings or public limited companies; driving license; MNREGA job card; smart card issued by RGI under NPR; passbooks with photos issued by bank or post office; ministry of labour's health insurance smart card; EC's authenticated photo voter slip; pension document with photo.
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