'Unwanted' names to be deleted from voters' list

Rajiv Ranjan Jha / TNN / Dec 5, 2005, 01:17 IST

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These are names of persons against whom there are non-bailable warrants and all attempts by admn to arrest them have proved futile till now.

'Unwanted' names to be deleted from voters' list

LUCKNOW: In an attempt to keep criminals and people with doubtful credentials away from the poll arena, the Election Commission has decided to delete the names of "proclaimed offenders" from the voters' list.
In the first go, a little over 700 names would be deleted from the electoral rolls at the time of revision of the list.
These are the names of persons against whom there are non-bailable warrants and all attempts by the administration to arrest them have proved futile till now.
In all probability, the revision will be over by December end. This would make Uttar Pradesh the second state after Bihar to have removed the names of offenders from voters' list.

This deletion, said a government official, has strong backing of the Supreme Court. A look into the names awaiting official axe reveal that many are notorious gangsters who are evading arrest for the past several years (in some cases).
The list includes the names of Pappu Yadav, Munna, Sanjay Kumar, Abdul Rahim, Nabi Ahmad, Jiya Ram Verma, Ram Sambhal and some others who face charges under Arms Act, Special Gangsters' Act, and cases filed under 323, 420, 468 of IPC, and MB Act.

A government official conceded that cases have been filed against them and the high court also desires their arrest. Of the names to be struck off from the list, over 50 are from Gorakhpur.
Rama Kant, Nagesh, Munesh Singh, Bablu Singh, Jagdish Prasad are the names from Gorakhpur. The police have been trying to track down these people for years without any success.
From western Uttar Pradesh, Rama Kant, Radheshyam, Prem Puri, Ali Raza, Ram Surat, Vinit Kumar, Ratan Kumar, Arvind Kumar and Ashok Kumar are notorious offenders against whom several cases are pending, said an official.
Arun Kumar Singh from Kushinagar, Virendra Mani Tripathi from Deoria, Ram Awadh Singh, Kumari Niti Singh are from Baghpat. More than a dozen names are from Faizabad and Balrampur districts.
On August 23, NBWs were issued against Nand Kishore, Ramesh Sharma, Badri Prasad Pathak, R C Sharma and Sushil Mehrotra but the police have failed to arrest them.
In all, the list has fairly good representation from the eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh, though there are many from the western parts of the state.
Interestingly, Lucknow and other KAVAL towns do not have preponderance in the list sent to the EC for deletion. State Election Commission (panchayat and local bodies) has also summoned the names and in all probability would remove them from the voters list.
Once the names are removed from the list, they would be in no position to take part in the electoral process and their presence on their home turf would land them in jail, said an EC official.

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