The Congress has launched an two-pronged attack on the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the government, accusing them of tampering with the voters’ list and manipulating the postal ballots allotted to policemen on election duty.
While Congress general secretary Oommen Chandy claimed the electoral rolls had been tampered with utilising officials owing allegiance to pro-CPI(M) service organisations, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Mullappally Ramachandran demanded a judicial probe into the alleged manipulations in the postal ballots of policemen.
Mr. Chandy said deputy tahsildars were empowered to take decisions on additions and deletions on the voters’ list and 74 of the deputy tahsildars in 77 taluks were connected to pro-Left organisations. The clerical staff too belonged to the left unions. At least 10 lakh votes would have been selectively deleted and these were United Democratic Front votes.
To substantiate his charge, he said the number of voters increased by just 1.32 lakh from 2.60 crore in the 2016 voters’ list for the Assembly elections. According to the Election Commission’s figures, there are 5.5 lakh new voters belonging to the 18-19 age group, registered after 2018.
He said it was assumed that another 5 lakh who attained 18 years between 2016 and 2018 had registered as new voters. The final voters’ list was prepared including the 10 lakh new voters.
The mandatory procedures for deleting names from the list had not been observed after the Left Democratic Front came to power. The ten lakh-odd voters whose names had been deleted were not served notices.
With regard to the police ballots, Mr. Chandy said Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala had written to the Chief Electoral Officer pointing out to the possibilities of foul play. The actions of the CEO after the elections were satisfactory, especially those related to bogus voting and the police ballots. But there were several questions that needed appropriate and convincing responses.
Mr. Ramachandran said the Crime Branch probe announced by the State Police Chief was not sufficient. Only a judicial probe would bring out the role of erring officials, he said.