Sunny Leone, elephant and pigeon on UP voters' list

BALLIA: Actor Sunny Leone is a voter in Ballia but goes by the name of Durgawati, if the voters’ list that was being prepared for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections is to be believed. An elephant, a pigeon and a deer were also on the list.

The errors were detected and set right during the process of verification of the list, officials said on Saturday, blaming a disgruntled data entry operator. Sunny Leone’s picture was alongside the name of a voter called Durgawati, while Kunwar Ankur Singh was represented by a deer and Kunwar Gaurav Singh had the picture of a pigeon against him, according to the list.

Another victim was Narad Rai, a former minister in the Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav governments in Uttar Pradesh. He had a picture of an elephant pasted besides his name in the updated voters’ list. The state’s chief electoral officer said the episode followed a fight between a data entry operator and a clerk.


“During the initial probe, it came to light that the data entry operator Vishnu Verma had a fight with a government clerk. After this, he was removed. Enraged by this, Verma tampered with the voter list,” a statement said. “Out of mischief, he pasted such pictures against the names of seven voters,” Additional District Magistrate Mukul Kumar Singhal told PTI. Singhal said the Election Commission was then informed and the errors corrected.

The mischief was discovered during the verification of the list, he said. Ballia Superintendent of Police Sriparna Ganguly said a First Information Report has been lodged against the data operator at Ballia police station.