Kamre (Ranchi), April 26: Seventy-five-year old Shahdeo Singh was angry. “This government is a fraud. It does not want us to cast our votes. So it has deliberately struck off our names from the list,” shouted the 75-year-old brandishing his walking-stick.

Protesting the non-inclusion of his name in the electoral roll despite getting a voter’s identity card from the Election Commission, he blocked the Ranchi-Lohardaga road near Kamre, along with residents of Kamre, Sarswatipur and Srinagar villages, nearly 11 km from the city.

Wielding his stick, Singh said, “I have been successfully casting my vote at the Kamre Middle School polling booth for the past several years but this year, I will not be able to exercise my vote, as I do not find my name on electoral roll.”

Over 400 voters from Kamre and other neighbouring areas ran from one polling booth to another, displaying their voter’s identity cards to find out in which polling booth they were supposed to cast their votes.

But they were turned back from each booth under Kamre area, where they had cast their votes during the 1999 election. The people blocked the state highway, chanting anti-government slogans.

A team of observers passing by the road had to bear the brunt of angry suburban voters, who shot several questions at a time. Election observer Vijay Ranganathan communicated the villagers’ anger to the chief election officer over his mobile phone, but even this did not help them cast their votes.

Ranganathan tried to placate the villagers, saying he had communicated their problems to the election office in Ranchi and someone would address the grievances. As the team of observers left, the people, lifted the blockade, hurling abuses at the government for the blunders on the electoral roll.

Banarsi Prasad, another Kamre resident, told The Telegraph, “We waited for the poll officials to visit our area and make special arrangement to cast our votes, but nobody came here till 5 pm to hear our grievances and finally we could not vote.”

Rakesh Ranjan, another resident, said, “Everyone, including Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpai and President APJ Abdul Kalam exhorted us to cast our vote, as just one vote could make a difference. But over 400 voters from one area were robbed of their democratic rights.”