Chennai: Voters beware, the largest democracy is up for polls, and on polling day, you may be standing next to a convict booked for bogus voting or a person booked by police involved in malpractices during the previous 2011 assembly polls.
As per Election Commission norms and according to the Representation of People’s Act 1951, the names of those involved in malpractices and election related crimes have to be removed from the electoral rolls, but in Tamil Nadu, the names of such convicts during the previous 2011 assembly polls is yet to be removed from the voters’ roll sheet.
“The state of election process in Tamil Nadu continues to be under a cloud and is a not fool-proof one,” says advocate M. Loganathan who obtained under an RTI petition, the names of those convicted for election related offences. Shocked over the fact that the names of the convicts were not being removed from the voters’ list, Loganathan and members of the Federation for Sustainable Development prepared a report with names of election offenders in more than two dozen Lok Sabha constituencies of Tamil Nadu.
“We have submitted the report with facts obtained under the RTI to the CEO’s office, but poll officials say it is too late to remove the names of convicts from the voters’ roll. As per the Indian Penal Code sections 171 E and F, the convict has to be disqualified from voting for a period of six years from the date of conviction, but in TN no such action has been taken, he says. For instance, in Sivagangai district, six persons were convicted for poll violation in 2012, but their names are still there in the voters' list,” the activist explains. Efforts to contact the office of the CEO proved futile.
