VIJAYAWADA: Names of only 111 electors were wrongfully deleted from the voters’ list in the Uravakonda constituency as against a complaint stating that more than 10,000 voters were deleted, Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Mukesh Kumar Meena said on Tuesday.
In a press release, the CEO explained that after receiving a complaint from Uravakonda MLA Payyavula Keshav, alleging that 10,069 electors had been deleted between 2020 and November 2021 without following due procedure and stating that they had expired/shifted/duplicate, the Anantapur collector, who is also the and District Election Officer (DEO), was directed to enquire into the matter and submit a detailed report.
Kumar said after conducting a detailed enquiry, the DEO reported that 4,005 out of 10,069 names were repeated. Hence, the enquiry was taken up for 6,158 electors. He added that first the documents pertaining to 6,158 voters in five mandals of the constituency were verified. Subsequently, it was learnt that proper procedure was not followed in the deletion of 2,912 voters.
“After verification of the files of deleted voters, special teams conducted a door-to-door survey for all the 6,158 applications to ascertain whether they are genuine or not. As per the Collector’s report dated June 29, 2023, the deletion of 111 voters was not genuine,” the CEO explained.
On the suspension of two officials, Shobha Swaroopa Rani and Bhaskar Reddy (both Chief Executive Officers of Anantapur Zilla Parishad), Kumar said disciplinary action has been initiated against them for not following the procedure prescribed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) while deleting names of voters in Uravakonda Assembly constituency during their tenure as the Election Registration Officers (EROs).
Stating that the Election Commission has issued orders communicating to the government to place the two officers under suspension with immediate effect, he said disciplinary proceedings against them will be completed within a period of six months.