Assam’s 1st Congress President’s granddaughter declared D-Voter

March 18: Ahead of the ensuing high-voltage 2019 Lok Sabha elections, as many as 1.2 lakh people in Assam have been marked as D-Voter or Doubtful Voter. To add to this list is the granddaughter of the first Congress president of Assam, Chabilal Upadhyay. Strange enough, even being the granddaughter of a freedom fighter, Manju Devi was tagged as a ‘D’voter in 2005, a stigma which she is yet to be freed of.

Aged 55, Manju Devi belongs to the Gorkha community and lives at Chandmari area of Tezpur in Sonitpur district. She is a mother of two and the granddaughter of freedom fighter Chabilal Upadhyay, who was the Assam’s first Congress president in 1921.

Expressing surprise at this, a government official unwilling to be named said, “This proves that the entire process of marking ‘D’ is a farse one. If the grand daughter of a freedom fighter is treated in this way, than it proves that other ordinary citizens will have to suffer much bitter ordeal.”

Manju Devi said, “I came to a conclusion that it is because of utter negligence of the authorities that the problem remains unresolved even after 13 long years.”