VISAKHAPATNAM : Stunning facts have been unearthed in the door-to-door survey check of the voters list in the district. The district administration has been facing a tough time to complete the survey as there is a huge difference between the registered voters in the electoral lists and ground reality. Though the Apex court directed the government against making Aadhar linkage with electoral lists compulsory, the district administration has completed about 72 per cent of the linkage process and found that a large number of voters are fake. There are are several allegations on the sudden rise of numbers in the voters lists announced before the 2014 general elections.
According to reports provided by the survey team, around 2.53 lakh voters across the district are having voter IDs in two places while some are entirely fake. Around 57,846 voters died, 3,100 voters are ineligible, 5.16 lakh voters have shifted from their residential address and while the residences of 4.65 lakh addresses are locked. The teams’ final presentation concluded that a total of about 12.95 lakh voters are not found in the claimed addresses.
Meanwhile, after taking several pains the officials have completed about 72 per cent of the Aadhar card linkage programme with the electoral lists.After observing the first-time reports of the survey teams, officials suspected that there could be lapses, following which collector N Yuvaraj directed the officials and survey teams to have a re-look. The survey teams prepared the final reports after re-verification.
“The population of the district is about 43 lakh and the number of voters are 34,31,822. If, the survey teams’ reports are taken into consideration, the total number of voters in the district will come to a maximum of 22 lakh. Even the Aadhar card linkage is not mandatory now, but we have to find the exact number of voters in the district. The re-verification of the voters is also done polling booth-wise, still there is a big difference in the numbers,” a senior revenue official said. The issue would be very serious as the differences identified are mostly in city-based Assembly constituencies. In view of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation elections, the electoral lists should be shortlisted according to the ground reality. If, the government announced the elections for GVMC, a large number of voters who have shifted and migrated would come again to utilise their right. However, the collector has to take a decision as there are several regulations interlinked with the issue. At present, the district administration cannot delete the voters’ names in the electoral lists on the basis of Aadhar seeding, the senior official added.