THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: AICC general secretary and former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has charged the CPM had entered into a conspiracy with the state government officials and conducted malpractice in electoral voters’ list to manipulate the elections. At least 10 lakh votes were manipulated in this manner and these are UDF votes, Chandy said.
He also said this manipulation process started much before the elections were declared and several deputy tahsildars were transferred for facilitating such a move. Chandy was addressing a press conference at the state Congress headquarters, Indira Bhavan, on Thursday.
The former Chief Minister said from 2016 to 2019, there was an increase of only 1.32 lakh voters while the growth from the 2009 Lok Sabha elections to the 2011 Assembly elections was 12.88 lakh voters. The 2011 Assembly to 2014 Lok Sabha polls saw a voter increase of 11.04 lakh while the difference from the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to 2016 Assembly elections was 17.5 lakh. However, Chandy said in this elections there was not a proportionate increase as found in earlier years and added this was owing to the manipulation and malpractice.
He said if someone has to be removed from the voters’ list, his consent has to be taken, . Chandy said if people are removed from the list without fulfilling the procedures and if they don’t have vote in any other place, then action should be taken against officials who removed them.