Tirupati: Parties assert tampering of voters' list a major concern

Tirupati: While the state gets ready for the general elections 2019, allegations and issues like bogus votes, duplication of voters, deletion of votes of the other party have been taking centre-stage in the tussles, widening the differences between contestants.

Chandragiri constituency, home turf of AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, is no exception to political tussles of this kind. The sitting legislator belonging to YSRC, Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy, and Telugu Desam party constituency in-charge, Pulivarthi Nani, have been playing tug-of-war on the issues. Both the leaders had been in the news recently after making allegations of creation and deletion of voters' names. They even lodged complaints against each other before the Election Commission of India (ECI).    

While Mr. Chevireddy alleges that he found irregularities in the voters' list of the constituency and pointed out that officials are extending their support to the TD candidate in deleting the names of YSRC sympathisers across the Chandragiri constituency, TD candidate Nani hit back at the YSRC legislator claiming that it was Chevireddy who had created nearly 7,000 bogus votes with the help of some officials who were hand-in-glove with the sitting legislator.

Recently, while addressing the media, Mr. Chevireddy said that the ruling party had been targeting the YSRC voters in various mandals in Chandragiri constituency in a bid to gain unethical political advantage ahead of the polls.

"Several voters from our constituency complained to me that their names had been deleted at the village level itself in various mandals. I took up the issue with the officials and showed them the deleted votes and documents. I urged them to set things right, but nothing has been done so far as the officials seem to be inclined towards the ruling party", he maintained.

Meanwhile, Telugu Desam-proposed MLA candidate Pulivarthi Nani rejected the allegations made by Mr Chevireddy. Speaking at an event recently, Mr Nani said, "Chevireddy was making false allegations and he is the one who had included thousands of bogus votes in several mandals in the constituency. Even the Kadapa voters have votes in Chandragiri constituency and the sitting legislator has been managing all these.