Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Na­pari­ma MP Nizam Baksh has been busy sort­ing out hic­cups in the UNC's elec­tions ma­chin­ery, but when elec­tions came around yes­ter­day, Baksh name was shock­ing­ly not on the list to vote. Baksh, who is a mem­ber of the elec­tions com­mit­tee, said yes­ter­day that he was ex­treme­ly dis­ap­point­ed that his name was not on the vot­ers' list. "I was sched­uled to vote at the Bar­rack­pore Re­gion­al Com­plex, but when I got there they told me that I was not on the vot­ers' list...There is noth­ing I can do about it now," he said. Baksh said he was a life­time mem­ber of the par­ty and ex­pect­ed to ex­er­cise his right to chose a po­lit­i­cal leader. He ex­plained that the mem­ber­ship com­mit­tee pro­vid­ed him with a copy of the list and his name was reg­is­tered to vote. The MP said he did not both­er to dou­ble-check with any oth­er list and he was sur­prised to find yes­ter­day that his name was elim­i­nat­ed.

Asked whether he be­lieved the re­moval of his name was de­lib­er­ate or was a hu­man er­ror, Baksh said: "I don't want to com­ment on that...I am a mem­ber of the elec­tions com­mit­tee and I re­al­ly can­not say any­thing un­less I have fur­ther in­for­ma­tion and facts." He said he spent the day tour­ing var­i­ous polling booths in the re­gion, deal­ing with sim­i­lar is­sues. Baksh said there were com­plaints of peo­ple be­ing turned away be­cause their names were not on the list. He said the in­struc­tions were that if peo­ple's names were not on the list, then they could not vote. "That ap­plies to me, too, but I am dis­ap­point­ed be­cause I feel that I am be­ing de­nied the right to vote," he said. Mean­while, Fyz­abad MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma dis­missed the in­ci­dent as a hu­man er­ror. He said that in every process, there must be some el­e­ment of hu­man er­ror. He said those peo­ple who came to his area to vote and were turned away were giv­en apolo­gies and as­sur­ances that they would vote the next time around.

?...Warn­er ex­press­es re­gret

?Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er yes­ter­day ex­pressed re­gret that Na­pari­ma MP Nizam Baksh was de­nied the right to vote in yes­ter­day's in­ter­nal elec­tions of the UNC. Warn­er said Baksh has been an MP since 2000, and got the sec­ond high­est num­ber of votes, more than 10,000, in the last Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Baksh, he said, was al­so a mem­ber of the elec­tions com­mit­tee that man­aged the elec­tion process, clear­ing up any doubt that he was a le­git­i­mate fi­nan­cial mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and there­fore was el­i­gi­ble to vote. "How can any­one even sug­gest that Mr Baksh is not a mem­ber of the UNC?" Warn­er asked. "He is a sit­ting MP, he is one of the MPs who en­dorsed Mr Pan­day and he is a mem­ber of the elec­tions com­mit­tee," he added. "This is the clear­est ev­i­dence yet of thiev­ery and shows that the com­mit­tee is mak­ing every ef­fort to steal the elec­tion. "This is the worst ex­am­ple of theft I have ever seen...They will pay for this."