A New Divide

Sample Chitrakoot: It falls into both Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Oneportion is in Banda constituency from where Bhairon Prasad Mishra of BahujanSamaj Party contested. The other part falls into Satna from where GaneshSingh of Bharatiya Janta Party was pitted against Congress candidate BirSingh Tomar. The average voter here was not clear as to who he should votefor. He has voter ID cards of both constituencies. The EC has tried to clearthe air but confusion remains.

Says former District Magistrate of Chitrakoot district, Jaganath Singh: "Themajor issue with voters in this areas is that the voters list is revisedmany times while the voter ID cards have been made years ago. Therefore theserial number is different in the ID card and it never matches with therevised voter’s list. Therefore 20 to 25 per cent people never get to voteduring the general elections. And that needs to be paid attention ".

There are other concerns too. For example:

• A constituency is deprived of development since it falls into the jurisdiction of two states.
• Some voters find that half of their family is scheduled caste in one state while the other half is scheduled tribe in another.
• On election days there is an accessibility problem because of the district/state borders. The villagers say they find it difficult to deal with the insensitive para-military forces that never allow them to cross the border to exercise their voting rights.
• States like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu,Goa, Kerala and Maharasthra have several districts where the electoral rolls are spread across two states.

In Karnataka, as many as 16 districts share their boundaries with AndhraPradesh, Maharastra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Goa.

Election Commissioner SY Quershi recognises the problem. Says he: "There arecertain houses on the border of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, where the drawingroom falls in the state of Tamil Nadu and the backyard or kitchen falls inPuducherry. Bifurcation of certain villages and towns in two states is theresult of reorganization of the states through the act of Parliament. "

However he defends the delimitation process: "The Delimitation Commissionwhile delimiting Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies takes care toensure that parts of villages and towns falling in one state are included inthe Parliamentary or Assembly Constituencies of the state concerned, thoughit may result in such divided villages or districts forming part ofdifferent constituencies in different states. It is a matter that requiresattention but is not worrisome".

The authorities of course claim that there are regular checks and there were noproblems during elections. Chief Electoralofficer of Karnataka M N Vidyashankar says, "The villages falling intothe purview of two states in various districts are very closely monitoredand we ensure that the name of voters figuring in a list in one state is notrepeated in the other state. There are regular meetings with the returningofficer to keep a close watch".

But it's not that simple. If the experience of innumerable people who, despite having a voterID, find their names missing from the electoral roll is anything to go by,one can be sure it must be more difficult to fine tune the system acrossborders that divide villages and towns.