(This story originally appeared in on May 13, 2014)

VARANASI: Polling ended with a fair bit of drama in the ninth and final phase of the general elections. In Varanasi , the epicentre of the electoral war, voters claimed that nearly 6,000 names were deleted from the records without prior intimation.At the National Inter College in Pilikothi, where a large number of Muslim weaver families are registered to vote, conditions turned riotous by afternoon when people were denied permission to vote because their names had allegedly been deleted from the voters' list The group of voters first protested outside the Adampura police station and then drifted back towards the National Inter College to continue their protest and raise slogans against the Election Commission . The groups maintained that the EC must allow them to vote after completing formalities. The mobs could only be controlled after the CRPF was sent in. They resorted to a mild lathicharge at the National Inter College to disperse the angry crowd.In Madanpura, another minority pocket in the city, a similar situation unfolded, where a large number of voters claimed their names had been deleted. Many among them said they had also voted, using the same voter IDs, during the assembly elections in 2012, but were now unable to find their names on the voters list.On Monday, some voters were also allegedly misled into believing that a "Form 7" could be filled up for a last-minute inclusion of their names. Election officials, unwilling to be drawn into a controversy with an angry crowd, did not clarify to the crowds that they would not be allowed to vote if their names were not on the list. "We were told that if we fill in Form 7 and provide one photograph, we will be allowed to vote. As a result, we have been waiting since 11am," said Danish Waqar, a voter at Bengali Tola inter college at Madanpura.By evening, the alleged large-scale deletion of names had also led to wild conspiracy theories, with voters alleging a BJP hand in ordering the deletion of Muslim names. Election officials, however, confirmed that the exclusion of names was not limited to any particular community. They also said that the Election Commission had set up camps for as many as five weeks to facilitate inclusion of names and for voter list revision and those who had visited these camps people who took the initiative to visit these camps had been able to vote, exercise their franchise, they said.