Despite its loud, celebrity-driven campaigns asking citizens to vote, the Election Commission has failed to ensure that eligible voters don't disappear from the electoral rolls.
Professor Ajit Masih, 85, has been voting in every election since 1962 when he voted for the first time.
"I got a job in Chhapra and so my vote was listed here," he explains.
The retired professor has voted in every Assembly, Parliament and Municipal election as he considers it his duty as a citizen.
Last Monday, on May 20, Professor Masih -- who had earlier appeared with his brother-in-law Paul Ismail in a video posted by the Saran district, which Chhapra is part of, telling people to vote -- went to the voting booth and was told that his name was not on the voters' list.
His name had been there in January 2024 when he had voted for a new mayor. All his protests fell on deaf ears.
Paul Ismail, 75, has been voting in every election since 1969. He was stunned to discover that his name was not on the voters' list. Not a person to easily give up, he found out who had deleted his name.
He got the name and number of the person responsible for the blunder.
"He insisted that he had come to my home and found me missing, which is a lie as our house is always open, either me and my wife are there or my sister and her husband are there. We never leave the home unattended," Mr Ismail tells me, still deeply upset days later, like his brother-in-law, about not being able to vote for the first time.
This is not an isolated instance. A Rediff.com editor found his name missing on the voters' list in the Mumbai North West consituency last Monday. His father, who passed away in October 2017, was still on the list.
Actress Vidya Malvade posted a tearful video on Instagram about how she was unable to vote because her name was missing from the voters list in Mumbai.
Another Rediff.com editor was shuttled between three voting centres in the Mumbai North Central constituency before election staff located his name on the voters list.
Teesta Karkera, who turned 21 in April, was very excited about voting in her first Lok Sabha election. She waited for three hours in the summer heat at the voting centre in the Mumbai North constituency, only to discover that her name was missing.
In no prior election has the Election Commission come off so badly. It has refused to censure the prime minister whose speeches hit a new nadir every second day. It has dilly dallied about how many Indians voted in each phase of the election. It has done nothing to probe the case of EVMs being nicked by members of you know which party.
And worse, despite its loud, celebrity-driven campaigns asking citizens to vote, it has failed to ensure that eligible voters don't disappear from the electoral rolls.
What Marcellus said about Denmark in Hamlet could well apply to this current election cycle.
