Mistake in electoral rolls makes state external affairs min wait

Shimla, Dec 19 (UNI) Union Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma had to wait for at least 25 minutes before casting his vote today in the second and final phase of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly election following an inadvertent mistake in the electoral rolls, party spokesman Kuldeep Singh Rathore said.

As soon as Mr Sharma turned up to cast his vote at the Saink Rest House polling booth, the election officials realised that his name had been entered twice in the electoral roll, Mr Rathore told UNI here.

Against one entry, apart from his photograph and name, all the other details were incorrect, while in the second entry, though the details were right, there was no photograph.

Mr Rathore said following this, the minister dispatched a man to fetch his electoral photo identity card (EPIC) from his house and it was only after the anomaly was rectified that he cast his vote after waiting for nearly 25 minutes.

He refuted report by a private news channel that the minister was made to wait at the polling station as he had forgotten to bring his EPIC.

Instead, he himself waited for nearly 25 minutes to weed out the inadvertent mistake in the electoral rolls, the state Congress spokesman added.

UNI