Navi Mumbai: Forest minister Ganesh Naik faced difficulty in finding his name in the electoral roll and locating the correct polling booth in Koparkhairane, Navi Mumbai, on Thursday and managed to cast his vote only after running from one booth to another for about an hour. After voting, Naik criticised election officials for what he described as a mess and expressed concern about mismanagement by the election machinery. He told the media that if a minister faced such hardship in exercising his voting right, common citizens could face greater problems. He said, “I think the election officials are under pressure or confused about how to discharge their duties properly.” Naik said his family had voted at RF Naik School in Koparkhairane for several years before the polling centre shifted to an NMMC-run CBSE school in the same area, and later they were informed it had actually moved to St Mary’s School, Koparkhairane. “In the morning, we went to St Mary’s School and there was a problem in finding our name at the booth. We were later told to go to the CBSE school, where we did not get our name in the electoral roll, which forced us to come back to St Mary’s school again, where we cast our vote,” Naik said.
