VIJAYAWADA: The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on Tuesday informed the AP High Court that it is not possible to delete the name of a person from the voters’ list soon after they receive an application for deletion of a vote. There are prescribed rules for deletion of votes and officials have to follow the rules in toto, the CEC clarified.
Advocate D Sivadarshan, appearing on behalf of the CEC, informed the court that a three-member committee will look into any application seeking deletion of five or more votes. It will enquire about the persons who have applied for deletion of votes, their addresses and phone numbers. Further, there are instances when they ordered for registering an FIR if the application for deletion of votes was found to be wrong. The advocate said more importantly, the officials will serve notices on the persons who sought deletion of their names from the voters’ list and take their explanation before going ahead with deleting the name. The CEC said it is wrong to say that they are deleting the votes based on anonymous letters.
The CEC made these submissions before the bench of Chief Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Justice Rao Raghunandan Rao, which heard a petition filed by Parchur MLA Y Sambasiva Rao stating that the Election Commission is failing to take any action against the indiscriminate deletion of votes in Parchur.
The petitioner’s counsel P Raviteja informed the bench that votes are being deleted from the list without following due procedure. At this juncture, the bench asked the CEC about the procedure adopted for deleting votes. When Sivadarshan informed about the procedure, the bench asked the advocate to file the same in an affidavit and posted the matter for hearing on October 31.