The Election Commission (EC) went all out to encourage more people to vote this year, even appointing special observers to assure voters that there would be no foul play. Needless to say, huge amounts of public funds were spent on the nationwide campaign.

But the whole purpose of the drive seems to have been defeated, with several lakh residents of Mumbai and Thane not finding their names on the voter lists yesterday. In some cases, only some members of the family were missing from the list, while others found mention. Earlier, the state wing of the EC had made much noise about the nationwide drive to clean the electoral rolls and draw up a fresh, updated one. While the focus was on updating addresses and weeding out names of deceased voters, duplication of names was also a matter of concern, they said.