In an incredible surprise of all surprises, the state's Chief Election Commissioner Teeka Ram Meena could not cast his vote in the local body election recently as his name was missing from the voters' list.

Meena wasn't friendless in the denial of his right to vote. He got the august company of CS Vishwas Mehta and about 30 other senior IAS, IPS, and IFS officers living in the Millennium Apartment near the Poojappura Rajiv Gandhi Center for Biotechnology, to be renamed after RSS icon Guru Golwalkar. All these officers, too, were denied their right to vote in the absence of their names from the voters' list.

Although all these distinguished officials had cast their vote in the last Lok Sabha election, the local booth-level officer possibly decided in the best interests of the local people that 'outsiders' must not be troubled to vote in the local body election.