Durgawati becomes 'Sunny Leone' on Ballia voters' list

A scantily clad woman resembling Bollywood actor Sunny Leone, an elephant, a pigeon and a deer have found mention in the revised voters’ list of Ballia district, uploaded recently on the government website. Pushed to the back foot, the administration has ordered a probe into the matter.

"While the list carries the picture of a scantly clad woman resembling Leone in place of voter Durgawati Singh of Vivekanand Colony, it carries photograph of an elephant against the name of former cabinet minister Narad Rai and picture of a deer in place of Kunwar Ankur Singh," a senior district official told TOI on Saturday.

The anomalies were detected in the revised voter’s list prepared in Ballia Sadar tehsil on Election Commission directives and uploaded on July 15. TOI is in possession of a few pages of the list carrying such anomalies.

Except for the picture of a wild elephant, other details of Narad Rai like his house number (85) and locality (Chandrashekhar Nagar Colony, Ballia) were correctly mentioned in the list. Similar was the case with many other voters.


After the mistake came to light, district election officials took corrective measures and transferred the data entry operator Vishnudev Verma and also filed an FIR against him. "Action had been taken in the matter even before I joined here some 20 days ago," said Ballia Sadar SDM Ashwini Srivastava.

He added that the the data entry operator has been transferred to Belthra Road tehsil office.

"The mistakes were rectified on August 13 before the publication of the final list. An FIR has been lodged with Ballia Kotwali police against the operator. The final voters list was to be published by August 15, but the deadline has now been extended," said city magistrate Vishram Yadav.

Deputy district election officer and ADM Manoj Kumar Singhal said that during verification of voters list, anomalies were detected in the photographs of eight voters uploaded by the operator. "City magistrate found involvement of the operator during his preliminary investigation and he was transferred from Sadar Tehsil. The matter has also been brought to the notice of state election commission," Singhal added.