1.28 L bogus voters in 2 constituencies

Hyderabad: A month away from the elections to the Telangana State Assembly, the Telangana TDP has asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to delete about 1.28 lakh alleged bogus votes in the electoral lists of Charminar and Bahadurpura Assembly constituencies.

In a representation submitted to the State Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar here on Thursday, the TDP state vice president Ali Masqati brought four-boxes full of spiral bounded books, compiling the data of the alleged bogus voters still found in the voters' lists of the Charminar Assembly constituency. The TDP leader while referring to the circular of the ECI on National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) of 2015, said, the Commission had time and again reiterated that its objective was, to bring a totally error-free and authenticated electoral rolls. Further, it had also given a clear timeline for completing the NERPAP exercise, launched from March 3, 2015.

As part of NERPAP, the booth level officers (BLOs) had identified thousands of bogus votes under different categories viz., duplicate, ineligible, dead, shifted, door-locked cases and action taken under 'not enrolled' in the Charminar Assembly segment. He said that data of the identified bogus voters had been prepared Assembly wise and notices were issued to the missing or bogus voters. But no further action had been taken for the purification of the voters' lists bowing down to the pressure of certain political parties, Masqati alleged.

Terming continuation of the alleged bogus votes would make a mockery of the entire process of the ensuing election in Charminar Assembly constituency, he asked, the CEO to take immediate steps for weeding out the bogus and missing voters figured in the existing voter's lists. To back his claim, Masqati submitted 18 spiral bounded books giving details of voter’s list categorised as the door-locked and another two books comprising details of the voters identified under shifted from their addresses, in the voters' lists.

Similarly, in another representation, Mohammed Abdul Wahab, TDP in charge for Bahadurpura Assembly constituency, sought the Commission to deploy polling staff from other districts or States, besides deploying paramilitary forces inside the polling booths and installing CCTV cameras. Wahab said that as many as 63,903 bogus votes had been identified in the voter’s list of the Bahadurpura Assembly constituency.

Abdul Wahab asked the Commission to consider the Apex Court's suggestion in its orders of 2005 in Janak Singh Vs Das Rai and others case, to deploy the para-military forces inside the polling booths, in addition to the law and order duty outside, and installing CCTV cameras to ensure that polling staff would not resort to unfair and illegal practices. The State Electoral Officer told The Hans India that the complaint submitted by the TDP has been sent to the District Election Officer, Hyderabad, for verification and to take necessary action.