BJP claims bogus voters in final list, say ECI misled by state due to BRS pressure

Hyderabad: Senior BJP leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy on Thursday lodged a complaint with Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, alleging bogus votes in the recently released final voters’ list.

Reddy, who is the Telangana BJP’s election commission affairs committee chairman, asked Kumar to direct the state election officials to look into it and delete bogus voters.

Shashidhar Reddy said that he found a discrepancy while visiting polling station 62 in the Sanathnagar constituency. “While I was at PS No 211, our BLA and local leaders pointed out that there were 26 voters enrolled in one small single-storey building on a site measuring about 150 sq. yds. These 26 voters are from S. No. 305 to 330 at the address. When questioned about it, the BLO instantly came out in defence, saying that they all have Aadhaar cards. This appeared rather suspicious,” the BJP senior leader said, providing the number of the house.

Reddy raised the issue at the EROs meeting and reminded that it should be verified and insisted that this should be recorded as part of the deliberations. He said that as per the information, of the 26 voters registered, nine were claimed to be at the house, while nine others were shifted to other polling stations within the constituency.

“I attended the weekly meeting convened by the ERO on October 4 after the final rolls were published. The ERO mentioned that the change was made on the basis of Form 8. I requested the officials to show those forms to me. One of them went in and said that those forms were not available and apparently, they were not even collected so far,” the BJP leader said.

He alleged that the state machinery was misleading the Election Commission under pressure from the ruling BRS. In an email, the BJP leader said the CEC assured that all discrepancies would be taken care of even after the final roll was published.

“At this rate, I am afraid that it will not be possible to do so with the present set-up. I requested the Election Commission to take serious note of the functioning of the CEO and the entire machinery, take immediate remedial actions to overhaul the system by inducting officials from outside the state, who can act independently, so that a proper electoral roll can be ensured,” Reddy said.