Kanniyakumari electorate petition Collector

It was unfortunate that over 30,000 fishermen from various coastal villages were denied their right to vote citing that their names were not on the voters’ list. While the government was creating awareness to ensure hundred per cent polling, much to shock of voters, their names had been deleted en masse from the list.

Even though they were in possession of voter identity cards, authorities concerned denied them permission to vote on April 18. Among 48 coastal villages and 68 inland fisher folk hamlets in the district, high deletion rate of voters was recorded at Thoothur, Enayam and Kadiyapatnam villages.Father Churchill, general secretary, South Asian Fishermen Fraternity, said already several deep sea fishermen lost their lives during Cyclone Ockhi in 2017 owing to government’s failure in rescue operations. As many as 245 fishermen became victims of the cyclone that struck the Kanniyakumari coast. These ill-fated fishermen lost their right to live, but now large number of fisher folks had lost their constitutional right to vote. Further, he said, “We have not sought to delete our names from the electoral list and not renounced our citizenship in India and we have not died. If so how our right to vote is lost, we feel there must be hidden agenda to remove our names from the voter list without our knowledge.” He sought legal action against the authorities behind the mass deletion of voters names.