YSRC lodges complaint with AP CEO

Vijayawada: The YSRC continued its fight against inclusion of bogus, fake and duplicate voters in the AP electoral rolls.

The ruling party lodged a fresh complaint with State Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Mukesh Kumar Meena, seeking the weeding out of such names. The YSRC team led by former minister Perni Venkataramaiah submitted a memorandum to the CEO saying about 59 lakh names were fraudulently enlisted in the voters’ lists by the Telugu Desam during its government’s period, and demanding that these names be removed.

The MLA said they expressed concern regarding the fluctuations in electoral numbers from 2014 to 2023 and sought a thorough and transparent inquiry to weed out bogus voters.

As per the general expectation, the number of registered electors should typically increase over time due to population growth and because of the inclusion of citizens who attain the age of 18. However, the data we have analysed paints a contrasting picture.”

In the year 2014, there were 3,68,26,744 registered electors in AP. By the year 2019, this number increased to 3,98,34,776, marking a significant growth of 30,08,032 electors. Surprisingly, as of March 31, 2023, the registered voter count has decreased to 3,97,96,678, indicating a reduction of 38,098 electors.

The YSRC legislator said the 8.1 per cent increase in the number of electors from 2014 to 2019 was in line with the expected population growth and inclusion of eligible voters. However, the decrease of 0.09 per cent in the number of electors from 2019 to 2023 raised concern as this decline was not reflective of the population growth trends documented in the census data.

He said the average population growth between 2014 and 2023 stood at 1.1 per cent. According to this growth rate, there should be a net addition to the number of electors over the years.

"The reduction in the number of net electors in 2023 compared to the previous year suggests the possibility of duplicate votes that may have been carried forward from the 2019 electoral rolls being deleted now. We requested the CEO and EC to conduct a thorough inquiry into this matter,” he added.