Bogus claims inflate voters’ rolls

VIJAYAWADA: The Krishna district administration has on its hand the task of weeding out over 2.4 lakh bogus voters from the electoral rolls.
Before the current revision of rolls, Krishna district had 29.94 lakh voters out of a total population of 42 lakh. That is 69.7 per cent of the total population. The administration has now received another three lakh claims.
If all these claims are entertained, the voter proportion would swell by 10 per cent, way above the permissible limit of 72 per cent of the population.While only 2.34 lakh new voters were added to the rolls in the past four years, a whopping 3.03 lakh new claims have been filed during the current revision.
A very high number of 52,877 claims were filed in Kankipadu constituency alone followed by 42,235 claims in Vijayawada East and 38,939 claims in Vijayawada West constituencies.
Similarly, a high number of claims have been filed inMylavaram, Nandigama, Gudivada, Jaggaiahpet, Machilipatnam, Tiruvuru, Nuzividu, Malleswaram, Kaikaluru, Vuyyuru, Gannavaram, Mudinepalli, Avanigadda, and Nidumolu. Now that this phenomenon of pumping up the voter rolls has been detected by the Election Commission, political parties are engaged in a blame game over it.
In Avanigadda, mandal TDP president Pitcheswara Rao has been charged with filing 50 bogus claims and he is likely to face prosecution under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, official sources told The Times of India.
Collector P Sampath Kumar said the claims would not be included in the new voters list before completing the screening process.
Of the existing voters, more than four lakh people have not got elector’s photo identity cards. Notices are being served to all such voters.
A suo motu inquiry revealed that about 40 per cent of such voters were non-existent.
All these names are being removed from the rolls. The collector said all those who filed bogus claims would be prosecuted.