KHAMMAM: Registration of as many as 532 votes on a single house number in the 20th ward of Khammam Municipal Corporation has come as a surprise. The house belongs to state transport minister Ajay Kumar.
Activist Koyinni Venkanna collected details from the Khammam collectorate under RTI Act. The house numbered 5-7-200 is located at Gollagudem Area on Mamata Hospital Road. It is suspected that electoral malpractice was aimed at by the minister.
The votes of Puvvada Ajay Kumar, his wife Puvvada Vasantalaxmi and Puvvada Nayanraj were listed in the same house number.
The RTI activist explained how the voters’ number changed year to year. There were 453 votes on the same house number in 2014, 657 votes in 2018, 561 votes in 2019 and 532 votes in 2021. The figures used to be changed before the elections to parliament, state assembly and municipal corporation.
Many are wondering how election commission officials kept a blind eye to such malpractices and did no scrutiny.
Many of the names were found in the voters’ list without their ‘surnames’. “The names like G Ramakrishna, M Mohan, P Sankar, D Sarath and N Murali and the like were all fakes. The names should be complete with surnames,” the activist said.
He also pointed out there are 6000 voters on the house numbers linked to Puvvada’s medical college. The election commission should hold an inquiry into these, he suggested.
Large numbers of voter names were registered on the house numbers like 5-7-200/1, 5-7-200/2, 5-7-200/3, 5-7-200/4, 5-7-200/6, 5-7-200/7, 5-7-200/8, 5-7-200/9 and 5-7-200/10. There were 698 voters on the house number of 5-7-200/1 and 1119 votes on house number 5-7-200/10 as per the list of 2021.
There were 1119 votes on the house number of 5-7-200/10 in 2021 against 890 votes in 2019. All these voters have been registered in two to three polling booths to suspectedly cast bogus votes.
Many guest houses attached to the Mamata Medical College and camouflaged as hostels have large numbers of voters. The guest house numbering 5-7-200/10 has names including Kinnerasani, Krishna, Godavari etc.
“There were names of boys in the voter list of girls' hostels when only girls are accommodated. Likewise, names of girls were in the voters list for the boys’ hostels. Clearly, they are all bogus votes. The vote scam will be exposed if the Election Commission conducted an independent inquiry,” the activist said.
“A glaring example of misuse of the election department is Nama Shilpa, my cousin studying in Mamata Medical College. She is residing in an independent house and yet, her name was shown in the voters list of one hostel,” Venkanna said.
