By Sujeet Kumar, IANS,
Raipur : Amar Agrawal, who is a cabinet rank minister in the Chhattisgarh government, was surprised when he received his voter identity card – every detail was perfect except for the photograph that showed a married woman wearing a coloured sari.
Agrawal holds health, urban administration and commercial taxes portfolios in the Raman Singh government.
“My voter identity card is perfectly right except that my photo was replaced by that of a woman. The officials concerned are taking care of the problem and it will be corrected soon,” Agrawal told IANS over telephone Thursday from his home town Bilaspur, some 120 km from the state capital here.
He said that his name, age, father’s name and even Bilaspur city’s house and ward number are mentioned correctly. The only glaring anomaly was the photograph of a woman dressed in a coloured sari wearing a mangalsutra (a necklace worn by married women).
“The publication of the preliminary voters list is in process as the state will go to the assembly polls in November and like my problem, several errors are being reported from various parts. Officials will surely correct it before the final list is out,” Agrawal said.
The Congress has alleged that thousands of names of party workers and supporters have either been deleted from the voters’ list or have been replaced by wrong photographs.
“There is a deliberate attempt to delete names of Congress supporters. If a woman can replace a minister on the voter identity card, you can imagine how big the problem is,” said Ramesh Warlyani, general secretary of the Congress state unit.
“Congress legislator from Mungeli Chandrabhan Baramate’s name too has been deleted in the just published voters’ list,” he added.