5,117 names wilfully added to voters' rolls, says DMK

Chennai: Irregularities continue to plague the RK Nagar electoral rolls. The opposition DMK, which has already approached the Madras High Court in this regard, submitted a fresh petition on Tuesday to the district election office informing that 5,117 names have been wilfully added to the voters' rolls.

The RK Nagar DMK candidate Marudhu Ganesh handed over proof of the double entries to corporation commissioner and district election officer D. Karthikeyan at Ripon Buildings. “There has been a constant attempt by vested interests to the add names of outsiders and also double entries have been made to 95 percent of polling booths in RK Nagar”, Marudhu Ganesh told DC.

“This is the case despite the Madras HC passing directions to the election department insisting on a foolproof voters roll. In a close contest, 5,000 votes are very crucial and it can be easily manipulated by a ruling party”, said S. Sudharsanam, DMK district secretary north Chennai. “We formed a team of 15 people to verify the rolls and found the double entries which were shocking. Where is the foolproof mechanism”, wondered the former government pleader.

When contacted, the district election officer D. Karthikeyan said that the petition from the political party will be scrutinised. “In case there are double entries the data will be passed to the local booth officers so that the multiple entries will be checked at the time of polling. We have already removed 45,000 voters names through enumeration and revising the voters roll now will be not feasible but steps will be taken to monitor the double entries so that there is no bogus voting”, the DEO added.

“Right from the 2016 assembly polls, the DMK has been approaching the courts to ensure that free and fair polls are conducted. Be it, the local body polls or the current bypoll to R K Nagar the response from the officials on poll duty is questionable violating the basic fundamentals of constitution”, said DMK lawyer's wing secretary R Girirajan. This is the state where the local body polls and a by election is delayed for the reasons best known to the ruling authorities and election commission. “Public are watching as their referendum is being botched by an administrative mess”, he added.

Three poll expenditure observers appointed

The Election Commission of India on Tuesday named three officials as the expenditure observers for the December 21 by-election to the high profile RK Nagar assembly constituency.

A communication from chief electoral officer Rajesh Lakhoni said that Kumar Pranav, Indian Revenue Service, Sheel Asheesh, Indian Railway Accounts Service, and TK Jagoria, Indian Defence Account Service, have been appointed as the observers. They have been asked to report (for duty here) on December 7, he said in a release.

The by-poll was necessitated by the demise of late chief minister Jayalalithaa in last December. In April, the by-poll saw the maximum number of poll observers but was cancelled due to large-scale irregularities.

The arrangements included 12 round-the-clock checkposts with six of them being manned by the armed central paramilitary force.