Notice to EC on DMK plea for recheck of voters’ list

Justice R Subbiah who heard the plea ordered notice returnable by Friday. DMK, represented by its organisation secretary R S Bharathi, had submitted based on Central Government’s census, Tamil Nadu’s population in 2011 was 7.21 crore and those in the age group of 13 years to 17 years was as many as 50.56 Lakh. 

In reality, if all these new voters had registered, the number of voters should have risen from 4.71 crore to 5.21 crore. But contrary to this, the voters list released on January 20, 2016 shows as many as 5.79 crore voters, which means an additional 1.07 crore voters have been included in the list.

Bharathi further submitted that the sudden increase of electorate in 2016 when compared to 2011 causes much concern as they appear to be bogus voters and that there was not only deletion of DMK sympathisers and office bearers but many minors were included as voters. 

Senior Advocate P Wilson appearing on behalf of the DMK contended that though who has given such large scale applications for inclusion to booth level officers is a million-dollar question, he alleged that AIADMK had set up a third party agency to include ineligible and bogus voters and the district election officers were forced by ruling party functionaries to accept such inclusions. 

He said the information pertaining to the applications made was not displayed in the website as per the Election Commission’s circular. But interestingly, after the publication of the final electoral roll, a press release was issued by the Chief Electoral Officer that about 16.18 lakh voters have been added increasing the electorate to 5.79 crore.