MOCKERY OF DEMOCRACY: A LIVING PERSON DECLARED DEAD

MOCKERY OF DEMOCRACY: A LIVING PERSON DECLARED DEAD

25-AUG-ENG 16

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA----------------------------The foundation of democracy rests on the voter. Democracy means “Government of the people, for the people and run by the people”. That is, the real power lies with the people. The people decide with their votes who will run their government. But when this right to vote is taken away from the people, then the people are left with nothing for democracy.

Such a right of the people has been taken away in Bhojpur headquarters Ara where a teacher burst into tears after getting the information of her being dead from the voter list.

Not only this, the names of her sons have also been transferred and deleted. The news is from Ward No. 12 of Ara which is shameful for democracy and is a matter of negligence. The woman who strengthened democracy by casting her vote throughout her life, was declared “dead” in the process of the Election Commission.

Mary Toppo, a 74-year-old teacher from Arrah, who was a Montessori school teacher, says she is still alive and has been voting in every election.

She broke down while expressing her grief and said, “I am sitting in front of the people, it is the government's fault to declare me dead. This is a direct attack on my rights.” The government is killing a living person on paper. The surprising thing is that not only her, but the names of her three sons have also been removed from the voter list.

Mary Toppo was married to Sylvester Toppo, a resident of Jharkhand, and she has been living in Arrah for the last 50 years. Despite this, her and her sons' names were removed during the Special Revision Campaign (SIR) of the voter list.

The eldest son Chandan Toppo (40) works in Delhi, the second son Albert Toppo has gone to Varanasi for some work, while the youngest son Clarence Toppo (38) lives in Arrah. Clarence says – “No BLO met us and verified. Suddenly my mother was declared dead and we three brothers were removed from the voter list. This is a serious mistake of the Election Commission.”

Clarence’s friend Abhishek Dwivedi told that the matter is related to booth number 223 of Yadav Vidyapeeth Plus Two High School. He said that when I saw the list in the morning, I found the name of my friend’s family deleted. When the BLO was asked about this, he said that “it could not be traced”. Abhishek alleges that “this is directly injustice to the poor and people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Tribes.”

This matter raises serious questions on the functioning of the Election Commission that how can a living voter be declared dead without any investigation and the entire family be deprived of voting rights.

When the news of this matter was taken from BLO Vinod Kumar Yadav, he said that I searched a lot, even contacted the former ward councilor and the current ward councilor but no one told me anything. Clarence said that it is funny to hear that no one revealed their identity. Whereas during elections, the list and serial number of the entire family was sent to the house by these councilors for voting. There are many questions but this one flaw has proved that somewhere in the work of voter revision, the responsible person has made a mistake. Why and how this mistake has happened is a matter of investigation but it definitely raises a question that now people like ward councilors do not even have access to the people of their ward, who are not able to provide correct information to BLO? In such a situation, what use are the representatives of the people to the public? Now it remains to be seen whether their name gets added again despite being a minority (Christian) or not.