Vijayawada: The Opposition Telugu Desam and the ruling YSRC have complained to the Chief Election Commissioner about the presence of bogus voters in AP’s electoral rolls for the upcoming general elections. Both sides met the CEC in New Delhi on Monday.
TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu listed out a series of violations in the electoral rolls including removal of about 40,000 names in Visakhapatnam East Assembly segment, 23,000 names in Vijayawada Central Assembly segment and 6,000 names in Uravakonda Assembly segment. He said these were done without following the norms.
He also complained about bulk filing of about 10,000 Form-7 applications in the 104, Parchur Assembly segment; conduct of house-to-house surveys without BLOs visiting houses in 166, Chandragiri Assembly segment; allotment of booths to voters of one family in different polling stations in 86, Tadikonda Assembly segment; and filing of Form-7 applications through paid agents in 41, Kakinada city Assembly segment.
Maintaining that the coming polls would be fought in an atmosphere of unprecedented violence due to prominence of money and muscle power, Naidu said the elimination of names from electoral rolls was done with the sole aim of denying the voting right to eligible citizens.
The former CM urged the CEC to ensure free and fair elections in AP by designating the state as the ‘most sensitive’ and providing it with a special monitoring mechanism. He wanted all eligible voters to be included in the electoral rolls and deletion of names of the dead and fake voters.
Naidu said he wanted the volunteers to be kept away from election-related work and felt the need for an inquiry into the collection and transfer of voters’ data including Aadhaar numbers to private agencies.
He asked the CEC to direct AP government to draft the teachers and other department staff for election work and called for the constitution of a high-power committee with technical experts with forensic skills for close monitoring of the revision of electoral rolls and conduct of polls in the state.
Meanwhile, the ruling YSRC MPs met the CEC and submitted a representation seeking his intervention to set the wrongs right vis-à-vis the AP electoral rolls.
A YSRC MP told the media in New Delhi that they informed the CEC about how Naidu and TD resorted to enrolment of bogus names in the electoral rolls. They gave an example as to how the name of a voter Lakshmi was included in the electoral rolls by changing the spelling of her name, age, surname as also her husband’s name, the door number etc.
He said the YSRC was committed to eliminate all bogus names from the electoral rolls to ensure the goal of ‘one person, one vote.’
The MP said they had submitted details of the bogus names included in the rolls by the previous TD government from 2015 onwards. Now, Naidu lodged a complaint to CEC against the YSRC, to cover up his faults and due to a fear of a debacle for the TD in the coming polls.
He said that at present, AP had 3.97 crore voters against 3.98 crore voters before the 2019 elections – a difference of one lakh voters -- and ruled out any interference from the YSRC government in the EC’s revision of the AP electoral rolls.
