Aadhar Card Does Not Enable You To Cast A Vote, More Paper Work Is Required If You Want To Vote

We saw a record over 68% of Delhi citizens coming out to vote. Yesterday morning from my balcony on the first floor,I watched people going to the voting station in front of my house. People flocked in large numbers to cast their vote. After all, there are over 1.2 crore people in New Delhi who have the right to vote.

However, not all of them go to vote. Why? One of the biggest factors contributing to this was — ‘laziness’. People just didnot wish to venture out of their homes and vote. When I got to know that an aunty (a PHD in her late 40s) had never, till date exercised her right to vote out of sheer lethargy, I had to do something about it. I made a point to take her to the polling stations near her house in VasantKunj, New Delhi.

What followed both angered and astonished me. On my way to her house I saw two polling booths and came to the conclusion that since these are near her block, it will be where she will go to cast her vote. So I picked my aunt up. We reached the polling station at lunch (2pm IST) and asked the officials if her block came under this polling station. The answer was a resounding ‘no’.

Next, we went to the polling station in a school adjacent to the one where we were at. Once again, we were told that this was not the right station and the officials had no idea where the residents of her block in Vasant Kunj could go and vote. We asked a police officer for help too, but he had no idea as well.We turned to our mobiles (which are not allowed inside the polling station, but the officials were flaunting with a smile) once back in the car. After a bit of a Google searching and browsing the not-so-helpful Indian electoral websites, we found the right address and went there.

People say third time’s the charm, but we did not want to take a chance, hence asked the lady officer outside. At first she said no, this is not the right station, but luckily another official overheard the conversation and said this was the right booth. Our faces lit up, we took a deep breath and went inside.

Here a new story began. One has to search from a long list filled with names (printed in random order) if you are not carrying your voters ID card or if you have not got the special ID ticket, which comes to your house. So another search began, which lead us to the conclusion that my aunt’s name was not on the electoral rolls.This was a bit of shock, since my aunt has an Aadhar card (Unique Identification number) from the government of India, which should enable her to vote.

However, even after getting a UID one cannot cast a vote in India. A kind lady at the polling station told us that something similar had happened to her earlier and one has to sign up on the election rolls as well. So now my aunt has to fill another form called Form 6 available onwww.eci.nic.in and submit it to the authorities.

On the whole, the lessons that I learnt yesterday is that one has to have a voter’s ID card and your name has to be on the electoral rolls. Without doing so, citizens will not be able to vote even if they have a PAN card, Passport, Ration card or even an Aadhar Card. This came across as bizarre to us. The purpose of having an Aadhar or UID is that people of India do not have to go to various departments and fill out forms at every level. But that is not the case, UID is basically of no use when it comes to voting and our experience taught us the hard way running from one booth to the other in scorching Delhi heat.