Tamil Nadu CEO denies mass deletion of voter names in Kanniyakumari
CHENNAI: Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo on Tuesday denied the allegations that a large number of names -- ranging from 50,000 to one lakh -- had been deleted in Kanniyakumari district before the April 18 Lok Sabha elections.
Pointing out that district officials had analysed the top 70 polling booths and found the deletions were from all parts of the district and there was no bias in deleting voters’ names from coastal areas. Further, no complaint had been received so far about large chunk of names in a particular booth.
Answering queries of reporters at the Secretariat, the CEO said that as per the report of the District Election Officer, only 10,042 names had been deleted for various reasons between September last year and April 5 this year while 56,522 names had been added to the rolls during the above period. Further, he said the deletions were spread across the district and mass deletion could not be seen in any pocket of the district during this period.
“The total number of voters stood at 14.47 lakh in Kanniyakumari district when draft rolls were published on September 1, 2018. After the summary revision was over and final electoral rolls were published in January this year, the number of voters had gone up to 14.77 lakh. During this, 37,731 names were added to the rolls and 7,671 names only were deleted across the district from the rolls for various reasons,” the CEO added.
Sahoo also said that between January and April 5, 18,791 names were added to the electoral rolls while 2,371 names were deleted. So, the total number of names deleted from the rolls between September last year and April stands at 10,042 only for the whole district.
On a woman officer trespassing into the strong room area a few days ago, the CEO said Additional CEO M Balaji would be submitting a detailed report on the issue and after studying the report, decisions would be taken.
Sahoo said he would be reviewing security arrangements at the strong rooms across the State with DEOs, SPs, and the DGP (Elections) through the video-conferencing facility on Wednesday.