Even after deleting names of 24 lakh fake voters from the electoral rolls of Madhya Pradesh by the Election Commission of India, the opposition Congress has alleged that 17 lakh fake voters still exist in 53 assembly constituencies out of 230. The state goes to poll in November this this year.
The state unit of Congress party in a memorandum submitted to Chief Election Officer of Madhya Pradesh, VL Kanth Rao said that they have conducted a scrutiny of 53 assembly constituencies from the scanned copy of the voter lists provided by the Election Commission and found that 17,15,119 voters were fake or duplicate. The scrutiny was conducted by a poll-related start up—thepolitics.in. The agency run by former IITian, Vikas Jain, claimed that they did a similar scrutiny of electoral rolls of Rajasthan and found 42 lakh fake or duplicate voters.
Congress state president of Rajasthan and general secretary in charge Avinash Pande had complained to Election Commission of India about the 42 lakh fake voters. Acting on the complaint the poll body has started a special survey to conduct physical verification of voters.
Chairperson of media cell of state Congress, Shobha Oza, said that “we have been repeatedly asking Election authorities to weed out the fake voters for last few months. We have pointed out several discrepancies in the data of the election commission but our complaints are not being taken seriously’’.
Vikas Jain alleging apathetic attitude of state election officials said “despite our repeated requests we are denied text copies of electoral rolls of 230 constituencies. The officials give us scanned copies which are difficult to be analysed or scrutinized.’’ He added, “Election Commission offices in Rajasthan and other states have no problem giving electoral rolls in text format which are a public property in public domain but Madhya Pradesh office surprisingly is denying this’’.
Ajay Gupta, chief of Legal cell of Madhya Pradesh Congress said ‘’we have submitted a memorandum to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) along with the fake or duplicate names in a CD’’. Earlier last month state Congress president Kamal Nath and chairman of state Congress election campaign committee, Jyotiraditya Scindia, had met chief Election Commissioner of India (ECI) and registered a complaint about 60 lakh fake voters in Madhya Pradesh. The Commission had tuned down the complaint of Congress after an initial inquiry saying that it has no merit.
Meanwhile, the final publication of electoral rolls in state is scheduled on September 27. The residents of state can submit their objections about the voter list till August 31. Elections to the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly are scheduled to be held in November this year.