Applied for voter card to avail loan for children’s education: Minta Devi, at centre of ‘age 124’ row

Minta Devi (35) tried applying for a personal loan in April to cover the fees. However, she says, she was told to produce a voter card, which she didn’t have at the time.

That’s when the mother of three young boys decided to apply for a voter card. A clerical error would later see Minta Devi being listed in the draft electoral roll, published amid the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Bihar, as a 124-year-old.

Amid the political tussle over the SIR, the eye-catching error in her age gave further ammunition to the Opposition as they raised the issue in Parliament.

On Tuesday, MPs from the INDIA bloc staged a protest in the Parliament complex against alleged irregularities in the process, wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with Minta Devi’s name and photo — the same photo she had given for her voter card. The back of the T-shirts was printed with “124 Not Out”.

The date of birth on the 35-year-old’s new voter card was engraved “15-07-1900”, which would have made her the oldest woman alive, until the Siwan district administration clarified that the date was a clerical error made during the online application process.

Her correct date of birth is July 15, 1990, according to her Aadhaar card. “While applying for the voter card through the cyber cafe, I had attached my Aadhaar card as the supporting document. I don’t know how the date got changed, but it is not due to any fault of mine,” Minta says.

After she got the voter card, Minta says she didn’t notice the error in the date of birth until the issue attracted attention. She is registered as a first-time voter in Bihar’s Daraundha Assembly seat, under Siwan Lok Sabha constituency, at the Kanya Utkramit Madhya Vidyalaya polling booth in Arjaanipur.

She was far from thrilled about the attention the error in her voter card has garnered, saying she only wanted to have her year of birth corrected from 1900 to 1990.

“Even with my enumeration form, I had submitted my Aadhaar, which had my correct age. I am not sure how the mistake regarding my age was made,” she says.

On Tuesday, as the error gained countrywide attention, Siwan officials said, “The BLO (booth level officer) has said that her age was entered as 124 by mistake during the process of filling the new form (Form-06). After the publication of the draft roll, the BLO pointed out the error in the electoral roll and contacted Minta Devi, who, as part of the correction process, submitted an application for rectification of the error in her electoral roll details through Form-08 on August 10. The claim will be processed within the prescribed time limit as per rules.”

Congress MPs Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and R. Sudha seen wearing T-shirts featuring the name Minta Devi during a protest alleging poll fraud in the country. (Photo: PTI)

Minta currently lives in Chapra with her husband and children in a rented house. While she looks after the children, Dhananjay works as an e-rickshaw driver.

“My husband somehow manages to earn around Rs 15,000 a month,” she says.

The family took loans of around Rs 2.5 lakh in the last one and a half years in Minta’s name. “Most of our earnings go into the repayment of that loan. The remaining money is spent on rent and household necessities,” Minta says.

The family has since dropped the idea of taking another loan to fund the children’s private school fees, deciding instead to focus on repaying the existing loan.

“We can’t afford to pay their school fees in our current situation, but we haven’t stopped their education completely. We have been giving our children home tuition through a private teacher, who charges Rs 1,000 a month,” Minta says.