RAIPUR: After the alleged discrepancies and complaints over duplicate names listed as "fake voters" in the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, the Congress in Chhattisgarh got cautious and chalked out an action plan to check the "spread" that party speculates on forged voter IDs in the state.
Last month the MP Congress had cited lakhs of names on voters list were duplicates across several constituencies gave rise to suspicious in the minds of Congressmen in the poll-bound Chhattisgarh state.
"Even in Chhattisgarh we recently found counterfeit and forged names as voters at different places and submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission. The district Congress president has specifically been asked to cross verify the names with the demographic details. Such exercise will be carried out up to the booth level in every district", the Congress chief spokesperson Ramesh Warlyani told the Express
Warlyani further added that the Congress will scrutinise the voters' list across the state and prepare ground report of each district.
The Congress leaders had expressed fear that the ruling BJP might adopt any "unacceptable" practice to win elections for the fourth consecutive term and so geared-up it party cadres. The BJP retorted that with the opposition left with no issue against the Raman Singh government in an election year are now spreading canards.
The Congress, out of power since 2003, had asked the party cadres to trace out the errors in voters list, undertake verification through door-to-door visit and go for remedial actions. The party will also look for every such people who are supporters of Congress ideology but couldn't get enrolled as electorates. "They would be given every help to get their names registered as voters during the revision of the electoral roll.
Congress will not let any electoral fraud in Chhattisgarh to happen", Warlyani asserted.The opposition leaders contended that any laxity in ensuring error-free voter list in small state with 90-member House might prove counter-productive to its poll prospect as the vote-share difference between the BJP and Congress consistently on a decline since last three elections, it was barely 0.77 per cent in 2013 between the two parties.