Thiruvananthapuram: Retired IAS officer K Mohandas, who checked the voters list for the local body elections only to find that his name was missing despite earlier verification, is now asking: “Where has my vote gone?” Yet he consoles himself that, even if he has no vote, the family has not completely lost out — because his brother-in-law K B Ganesh Kumar, also Transport Minister, appears to have two votes, one in Kottarakkara and another in Pathanapuram. Mohandas says that although officials struck his name off the list, the candidate Vyshna still has his “imaginary vote” thanks to the court’s intervention.

Mohandas said he had voted in Kottarakkara during the previous local body elections. After retirement, he made Kottarakkara his permanent address. This time, however, only his wife Usha Mohandas, daughter of former minister R Balakrishna Pillai, has a vote there. He applied online to have his name added. No one contacted him. Even the supplementary list did not include his name, Mohandas said. He is the IAS officer who, as Local Self-Government Secretary three decades ago, worked sleepless nights to frame the Panchayat Raj and Municipality Acts.

He asks whether the outcome in Bihar was not proof of what happens when one campaigns by blaming the Election Commissioner Gyanaesh Kumar and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for missing names in the central electoral roll. Therefore, he says, he is not foolish enough to blame Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan or State Election Commissioner A Shajahan for the absence of his vote here. “The vote is no longer a right; it has become an act of official generosity. What we now need is accuracy from officials and vigilance from voters.”

Mohandas wrote the following on Facebook:

“On December 9, when polling takes place, Usha will vote in Kottarakkara. My vote is a myth — imaginary. Imagination has limitless freedom. So I shall vote in the Muttada ward of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, for the girl Vyshna, who went through the bitter experience of having her name struck off the list due to the high-handedness of those in power. Power should not be used to defeat the people — that is the message I wish to convey.”
 

Even as the opposition to SIR continues, Mohandas’ experience has once again triggered debate on the multiple reasons given for deleting votes during local body elections.