Visakhapatnam: Returning Officer’s office blamed for leakage of ballot data

Visakhapatnam: The office of the Returning Officer (RO) has been blamed for the leakage of data related to postal ballot voters in Bheemili Assembly constituency in Visakhapatnam district.

YSRC Bheemili candidate Avanti Srinivas had earlier alleged that his opponent from Telugu Desam Sabbam Hari had addressed a teleconference with teachers, requesting for their votes. He had complained to District Election Officer K. Bhaskar that it is a violation of the election code. An audio tape of alleged converstion of Mr Hari was out earlier.

The district collector had earlier ordered the district revenue officer (DRO) for a probe. Later, the report was sent to the Election Commission confirming that Sabbam Hari had violated the election code and had done campaigning among the teachers. The DRO had also verified about how the data of postal ballot voters, including mobile numbers, were leaked. It was also enclosed in the report.

However, it was found that the data of the voters was leaked from the office of the Returning Officer. When approached, district collector K. Bhaskar said: “The collector’s office will have the data of postal ballot voters, but the list will not contain their phone numbers. The list with the phone numbers will be only available in the office of the returning officer and we are suspecting that it was leaked from the same office. We have also mentioned it in the report sent to the Election Commission.”