Over the last few days as a build up to the elections, my wife and I spent quite a few hours on the dinner table talking to our kids about the electoral process in India. They had so many questions, and it was really heartening to listen to their views, their thoughts and analysis. The excitement was certainly in the air as D-day arrived and I must admit that I had a sense of pride during the early morning short walk from my residence to the polling booth.

Little did I know what the next few hours were going to reveal.

It’s late in the afternoon, and we just reached home. My name and my wife’s name were missing from the voters list. It came as a shock to us. Determined to cast our vote, we spent the past few hours going from booth to booth in the area and checking entire lists. We came back home tired, dejected, disappointed and hurt.

Hurt.

Hurt because there hasn’t been a single year that I did not pay my income tax. Hurt because I have a passport that says that I am a citizen of the Republic of India. Hurt because I did not do any crime in my life. Hurt because I have been honest. Hurt because I am educated. Hurt because I rejected foreign offers as I wanted to stay, work and serve in my country. Hurt because I did not get to vote and voice my opinion.

I found that I was not the only one rummaging through the voter lists. At each of the polling booths that I went, there were dozens of helpless people totally clueless and frustrated.

I understand that with a billion people, holding the General Elections in India is possibly one of the most administratively challenging tasks in the world, but I’m sorry Mr Chief Election Commissioner, I have totally lost faith in the process because I think that there are gaping holes and there is a tremendous scope for rigging the electoral ballot.

Just to put things in perspective – we have been living in the same house for the past eight years, and we cast our vote during the last elections. We were on the list then.

What went wrong now?