RK Nagar polls: Madras HC asks EC to take severe action against bogus voters

Chennai: Appreciating the steps taken by the DMK in setting the electoral roll in order in the RK Nagar Assembly constituency, the Madras high court has expressed its expectation that the election commission to take severe action, not only against such deleted voters and also against the persons/political party or parties instrumental in effecting such inclusion of those illegal entries.

“The punishment against those persons must be severe in nature, even to an extent of banning them from voting or contesting the election permanently forever. Unless such strong measures are taken, these sorts of evil attempts will continue, which would result in a mockery of democracy. We strongly believe that the election commission will take all effective steps and ensure that a free and fair election will never be compromised on any account and the same will be achieved at any cost, as the election is the sole lifeline of democracy”, said a division bench comprising Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and K. Ravichandrabaabu while disposing of a petition filed by the DMK organisation secretary R.S. Bharathi.

Referring to the submission of senior counsel P. Wilson put the ASD seal in the main electoral roll against the disputed voters by circulating the same to all polling stations, The ECI will also supply the same to all contestants and conduct the election in a free and fair manner, the bench added.

Admittedly, taking note of the complaint made by the petitioner, the ECI has deleted 45,836 voters after exercising 100 per cent door-to-door verification and further now it was stated before, this court that another 1947 voters still were found to be cases of multiple entries and could not be deleted in view of statutory time constraint. It was also stated by the ECI that the total strength of electoral rolls in this particular constituency as on December 4, 2017, was 2,28,234 voters.

“These figures undoubtedly shock our conscience as the total number of voters deleted, so far, it is alarmingly very high in numbers. Needless to say, even a single vote may change the result”, the bench pointed out.