Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Sathyabrata Sahoo has ordered action against the polling officials in Chennai who allowed actor Sivakarthikeyan to vote on April 18, when his name was not on the electoral roll. "Sivakarthikeyan's name was not on the voter's list. He has voted despite that. This is a mistake on the part of the polling booth officials present there. I have ordered for action against them," Sahoo told reporters at the Secretariat on Tuesday.
On April 18, Sivakarthikeyan and his wife Aarthi had gone to vote at the Good Shepherd School polling booth in Valasaravakkam. However, while his wife’s name was in the list, Sivakarthikeyan’s was not. According to reports, Sivakarthikeyan returned to the booth an hour later and was allowed to cast his vote. When questioned about the same, he reportedly stated that he had received 'special permission'.
The actor had tweeted his inked finger on the same day, with the caption, “Voting is your right and fight for your right.”
Voting is your right and fight for your right pic.twitter.com/lYyu2LyWKZ
— Sivakarthikeyan (@Siva_Kartikeyan) April 18, 2019
In a similar case, actor Srikanth, too, was allowed to vote in a booth in Saligramam despite his name not being on the electoral roll there. “The polling officer allowed it since I was issued an election ID,” Srikanth told TNM, “After I got back home, I realised that my Aadhaar card had the new address and later I found that my voting was supposed to be in Valluvar Kottam.” It is interesting to note that the two booths are in different constituencies - Chennai South and Chennai Central respectively.
We voted Today Morning at Saligramam Kavery School :-) pic.twitter.com/itxNlJEHkB
— Srikanth_official (@Act_Srikanth) April 18, 2019
There is no confirmation yet on whether the EC will act against officials at Saligramam as well.
When the news that Sivakarthikeyan “won his right to vote” spread on April 18, many questioned how and why he was allowed to vote when so many other citizens who found themselves in a similar situation were not – including actors like Ramesh Kanna and Robo Shankar.
In a selfie video on polling day, Ramesh Kanna said that he had gone to his booth where he had voted in previous years. “I went there at 6 am since I had to travel to Nagercoil and hence I went there early. I had my voter identity card with me. After 7 am, after I had waited for a while, the booth officials told me that I cannot vote since my name is not on the list,” he said.
Slamming the ECI, Ramesh Kanna also asked how it was possible that his wife who lives in the same house found her name in the list and he was missing. “Now I have lost my chance to vote. Whose mistake is this? Will they allow me to exercise my right in Nagercoil now?” he asked in the video.