ISLAMABAD, Oct 10: Hundreds of people found their names missing from the voter lists, when they came to cast their votes at their respective polling stations here on Thursday.

They also found the names of their families scattered in the lists, which caused serious hardships to them.

Dr Israr Shah, the former advisor in the last Benazir government, told an international group of election observers that “National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) and the local administration deliberately created confusion in the electoral rolls for Islamabad.”

He said hundreds of voters had to run from one polling station to the other to cast their votes, but in vain.

Several ailing and old people, who came to cast their votes for the PPP, found their names missing from the lists but returned home in great disappointment, he added.

Dr Israr, however, conceded that the local PPP leadership was not well-prepared to combat “this trick” though they had been complaining to the relevant authorities about this situation.

The PPP and PML-N polling agents in the combined polling stations of men and women at government girls schools G-6/2, G-6/1, I-9/4 and G-9 Markaz told the poll observers that the polling was fair and free and there was no “rigging at least to their knowledge”.

The polling agents of the PPP, PML-N and MMA also said that they did not challenge any vote and that the polling continued uninterrupted. However, they said they had to face the problem of “missing of names of several voters”.

They said the turnout was comparatively low this year as compared to the last elections because of the absence of main political parties heads from the country.

They alleged that the PML-Q supporters had full control of the vehicles impounded by the local administration for the transportation of the polling staff and they used these vehicles to pick and drop the voters.

Meanwhile, Hafiz Hussain, a former member of the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board while briefing a three-member Commonwealth team which visited NA-54, said after every 20 or 30 voters, a complaint about missing name or that identity card number do not match with the list was lodged.

He said a number of voters remained standing outside the polling stations as they found that they could not cast their votes due to ‘anomalies’ in the voter lists.

“This reflect volumes about the efficiency of the Nadra and lack of transparency in the electoral process,” he commented.

The same opinion was also expressed by a polling agent in NA-56 who told Dawn that a few women came to cast their votes in the morning but their names were not enlisted.

In Rawalpindi, about 20 per cent voters, especially women voters, could not cast their votes due to mistakes in the electoral list in most of the polling stations.

The voters complained hat they cast votes in every election but this time, to their surprise, they found their names missing from the voter lists. Many voters had to wait for hours to get their names checked but they had to go back without casting their votes.

Similarly, due to the redemarcation of constituencies many voters were unable to trace in which polling station their votes were registered. Many voters had to go back without casting their votes when they found that their names were not registered.