Kerala: Families forced to vote from different wards

The major complainant in this regard is BJP while the LDF and UDF do not bother much about it. BJP candidate in Giri Nagar Padmaja S. Menon says that this is a deliberate attempt to help these fronts and thwart the chances of BJP.

“In my ward alone nearly 100 votes have been transferred in this manner and this affects my chances whereas the LDF and UDF are benefiting from it. The husband has vote in my ward while the wife has in a distant ward. Old people too are hit,” she said.

This is bound to affect the polling percentage as well. “Some persons in my ward do not figure in the voters list also,” she said. The UDF candidate from the ward P. D. Martin said that the BJP candidate should have raised the complaint earlier when time was given to redress the same.

However, additional secretary, Kochi corporation, in charge of election cell A.S. Anooja said that the votes were split later after complaints were raised saying that more than 1500 voters were stacked in several booths with which it was unmanageable to finish polling within deadline.

“So the state election commission was requested to increase the number of polling booths. Later it was raised from 280 to 326. We tried our level best with a limited manpower of four officials in our cell to avoid cases of votes in the same family and area getting split. Sporadic cases may have occurred,” Anooja added