Two leaked pages of the revised voters’ list of Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia district, uploaded recently on the government website, showed pictures of actor Sunny Leone, an elephant, a pigeon and a deer next to the names of the residents of the district.
According to a report by The Times of India, owing to pressure from local journalists, who sought a clarification from the district officials, a probe was ordered and an operator Vishnu Dev Verma was identified as the culprit.
The mistakes were rectified on 13 August 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 15 August, but the deadline has now been extended.Manoj Kumar Singhal, Ballia Additional District Magistrate to TOI
In the two pages that were leaked to the media, a photograph of Sunny Leone was placed next to the name of a 51-year-old woman and a photo of an elephant was placed next to the name of a 56-year-old man.
Apart from the misplaced pictures, the list does not contain any other anomalies in terms of house number or the locality of the voters, the report added.
ADM Manoj Kumar Singhal told The Times of India that, during verification, they detected anomalies in the photographs of eight voters uploaded by the operator.
Lists of voters are being updated across Uttar Pradesh before the 2019 elections and Ballia’s revised voters’ list was prepared and uploaded on 15 July, the report said.
Singhal also told the newspaper that the matter has been brought into the notice of the state’s election commission.
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