DMK petitions EC on ‘bogus voters’

Stating that this pointed to inclusion of 64 lakh voters in the rolls, he said the final rolls declared the total population to be 7.66 crores in 2015. The final rolls mentioned the number of voters to be 5.79 crores which amounted to 75.58 percent of the population “which is absurd” as the voting population in 2011 was only 65.31 percent of the population of 7.21 crores then. 

The petition said the Chief Electoral Officer, in a release dated 10-9-2015, had stated that he received 4.20 lakh Form-6 applications for voter inclusion and 5.05 lakh applications from voters who shifted, totalling 9.25 lakh applications. But a month later he claimed to have received 16.94 lakh Form6 applications for first time inclusion and another 1.76 lakh applications from those shifting across constituencies and for deletion. 

Wondering as to who had given so many applications to booth level officers, Bharathi wanted to know why this information was not displayed on the Election Commission’s website. A press release on January 20 showed details about inclusion but none about deletion. 

But even inclusions did not state whether they were fresh inclusions or were due to shifting of voters. The press releases from the CEO dated Oct. 29, 2015 and Jan. 20, 2016 revealed many discrepancies regarding applications received and admitted. 

Party treasurer MK Stalin while speaking at Cuddalore on July 18, 2015, not only pointed to the CEO’s dubious method but also the fact that many persons had been shown as dead. This led to the AIADMK’s victory in 2014, he alleged and said that a petition demanding prosecution of the CEO and the Chief Election Commissioner was submitted to the President on June 30, 2014.