Hyderabad: Congress' gripe about enrolling fake graduates

Hyderabad: Alleging that TRS is enrolling the graduate voters by using fake degree certificates for the MLC (Graduates) elections, Congress on Wednesday urged the EC to put in place some mechanism to identify and stop fake graduates from voting.

The party leaders led by chairman, TPCC election coordination committee, Marri Shashidhar Reddy and convenor G Niranjan met the Chief Electoral Officer (TS) Shashank Goel to highlight the seriousness of the problem which could impact the prospects of winning candidates. In their representation, they pointed out that the system of online enrolment was very porous without any scope for verification of the authenticity of the degree or marks memo. While referring to reports in digital media, the leaders alleged that TRS leadership was resorting to utilising fake degree certificates.

"We raised this issue in the all-party meeting at the GHMC on October 3. Since 2014 there have been several instances of fake degree certificates coming to light in City and the TRS has the dubious distinction of tinkering with the purity of the electoral rolls right from 2015 onwards.

"We have serious apprehensions about the enrolment of bogus voters on the basis of fake certificates. Since there is no procedure to verify the authenticity of degree certificates or marks memo, we urge the EC to take steps to put in place a process to do this immediately," they urged.