The names of eligible voters missing from the electoral rolls, or presence of bogus voters, are common complaints of political parties on the eve of elections across the country, but what Andhra Pradesh is witnessing these days is unprecedented.
The election authorities, currently busy with the revision of electoral rolls for the ensuing Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, are having to spend their entire time and energy in verification of these applications received online.
Form 7 is the application prescribed by the Election Commission for objection to the inclusion of name of another person, or to seek the deletion of such a person's name.
According to Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Gopal Krishna Dwivedi, 8 lakh applications have been received so far for deletions. As many as 7 lakh applications were received in just 10 days.
On the CEOs direction, police in 13 districts booked 45 cases against those misusing Form 7. They were booked after identifying the IP addresses of those sending online applications.
The ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and main opposition YSR Congress have accused each other of deleting the names of their respective supporters from voter list.
The issue has sparked a huge row with its echo being heard in neighbouring Telangana. The data theft case booked in Telangana against an IT firm providing IT solutions to the TDP has added a new dimension with police suspecting a link between misuse of citizens' data for deletion of voters' names.
TDP has rubbished the allegations, terming the data theft case a conspiracy between Telangana's ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and YSR Congress.
Alleging that its data was stolen by Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, too, has formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising senior police officials. The sIT has also been asked to probe the enmasse requests for deletion of names from the voters' list.
YSR Congress, in its representations to the Election Commission and Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan last month claimed that out of a total 3.69 crore voters in the state, 16 per cent, or over 59 lakh voters, were invalid or duplicate.
It claimed this number in September 2018 was 52.7 lakh. According to its analysis, over 20 lakh people have votes in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
YSR Congress president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy alleged that the Telugu Desam government was doing everything in its power to subvert democracy and steal the election.
Reddy said on Tuesday that his party cadre were asked to file Form 7 and Form 6 if their name is not found in the list, or in case they suspect some foul play.
Chief Minister and TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu described this as an admission by Jagan that the YSR Congress is behind the misuse of Form 7 and demanded that the Election Commission take action against him and all those responsible.
Naidu also sees the involvement of current Janata Dal (United) vice-president Prashant Kishor as he was a consultant to the YSR Congress.
"Their conspiracy is to create chaos in Andhra Pradesh and turn it into another Bihar," he said, alleging that the YSR Congress, BJP and TRS were hand-in-glove.
At a public meeting, Naidu said that even his name could be deleted from the voters' list.
"If they (YSR Congress) can do this without even coming to power, imagine what they will do if they win the elections," the TDP chief said.
--IANS
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