Notice ordered on plea over deletion of voters in Kumari

The vacation division bench comprising Justice S Vaidyanathan and Justice Subramonium Prasad before whom the plea came ordered notice returnable in four weeks.

The petitioner A Rajkumar, district coordinator, Tamil Meenavar Koottamaippu, had submitted that the coastal villages of Thoothur, Chinnathurai, Kadiyapattinams, Rajakamangalam, Thuriamanavalkurichi, Mulloorthurai, Idalkudi and other coastal villages, where the primary population is Christian minorities, witnessed mass deletion of at least 45,000 voters.

Also, holding that the mass deletion has revealed that the election authorities have made a statutory default in conducting free and fair elections according to the provisions of the Indian Constitution, the plea also raised an apprehension that the mass deletion had transpired owing to the belief that the coastal villagers may not support the ruling coalition in the Parliamentary election owing to its negligence of the coastal villages during the Okhi cyclone, and this would affect the possibility of their success.

The plea also submitted that there has been a decrease in the number of voters between 2016 and 2019, which is contrary to the claim of the election authorities that there has been an increase of nearly 5 per cent in this parliamentary election. Moreover, while the voting rate in Tamil Nadu is approximately 72 per cent, Kanyakumari witnessed only 69 per cent, which is three per cent below the state average.

Also, the voting time was wrongly printed in booth slip as 7 am to 8 pm and people who took that seriously visited the booth after 6 pm and were disappointed to see that the booths were closed, the plea said.

Besides seeking for a status report on the missing votes regards Kanyakumari, Nagercoil, Colachel, Vilavancode and Killiyur Constituencies pertaining to Kanyakumari Parliamentary Election held on April 18, the plea also sought for a direction to hold reelection in the respective polling stations, which had witnessed mass deletion of voters.