CHENNAI: A writ plea has been made in the Madras High Court for a directive to the Election Commission and Chief Electoral Officer to ‘purify’ the voters’ list of R K Nagar Assembly constituency.
In his PIL petition, R S Bharathy, organising secretary of DMK and a Rajya Sabha member, sought to delete the ‘double entries’, ‘absent’, ‘multiple entries’, ‘shifted’, ‘multiple voters with same voter identification numbers’ and ‘the dead’ in respect of R K Nagar, by constituting a special team before conducting the by-election.
Petitioner’s senior counsel P Wilson submitted that the DMK had sent various representations in respect of several booths alleging ‘double entries’, ‘absent’, ‘shifted’ and ‘dead’, which totals more than 43,000 voters. The last representation dated August 7 contained full particulars and details about the entries and includes ward numbers, part numbers, shifted voters, double entry voters and dead voters, totalling about 43,861 bogus voters.
In fact, even in the CD given by the authorities, it is admitted that around 17,000 voters are to be deleted. Hence, it is clearly admitted by them that there are errors in the voters list and the same ought to be rectified. However, due to extraneous reasons, these bogus voters are not being deleted. Even during the earlier rescinded bye-election to the same constituency, the DMK submitted a representation dated April 3 last requesting to issue a revised ‘ASD’ (absent, shifted, dead) list after making necessary corrections to remove the multiple entries and bogus voters. But, no effective steps were taken, which ultimately resulted in the publication of an electoral list replete with bogus voters.
In these circumstances, special camps were held in September and October, at which also forms for inclusion and deletion were distributed. In the meantime, a ‘draft voters list’ was published. On verification, it was found that their request for deletion of voters in various categories were not done fully. Even the serial numbers of such voters, numbering about 17,000 furnished in the CD given by the authorities are not so far deleted.
Deletion of such bogus votes is necessary to ensure purification of the voters list. Hence, DMK North Chennai district secretary Madhavaram S Sudharsanam submitted a detailed representation on October 16 last to the Chief Electoral Officer, who in turn had directed the District Electoral Officer-cum-Commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation to submit a report on the representation given by Sudharsanam. However, the officials are fully working hand-in-glove with the ruling party and under their instructions, they have not deleted any of the bogus voters, including those whom the Commission itself has recognised as bogus, he alleged. The DEO has neglected to perform his statutory duties, the counsel further said.
MK Stalin rues delay
Chennai: Ruing the delay in announcing the date for bypoll to RK Nagar Assembly segment, DMK working president M K Stalin said nothing will be more autocratic if the EC is to declare the schedule only after disposing of the case relating to the AIADMK’s ‘Two Leaves’ symbol. “I don’t think they said so. If they are doing so, nothing will be more autocratic and murder of democracy than that,” he said replying to a question on apprehensions that the EC would announce the poll date before December 31, by which time the dispute over the symbol would have been sorted out.
Yatra deferred?
Chennai: Meanwhile, party sources said Stalin is likely to defer his proposed yatra due to certain factors, including monsoon and bypoll in R K Nagar. In fact, he had planned to launch the yatra in the first week of November from Chennai, by organising a grand event in which leaders of national opposition parties would be invited to participate.