Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Enrolment of voters raises eyebrows

By Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao

WARANGAL DEC. 19. The recent enrolment of voters has stunned the authorities who found more than 100 per cent of voters when compared to the actual population under certain polling booths.

To check veracity of the exercise, a two-member team from the Election Commission is visiting the district from December 22 to 25. The Principal Secretary, Anand Kumar, and the Under Secretary, Ashish Chakraborthy, of the Commission would scrutinise the fresh list of voters.

In Gorrekunta village of Geesukonda mandal of Shayampet constituency, the percentage of voters enrolled was 179 per cent as against the actual population of the village. In Station Ghanpur constituency, officials found 106 per cent of enrolment. According to a senior revenue official, there were about 100 places in the district where enrolment was found abnormal and against the norms of the Election Commission.

As per rules, the enrolment should be about 65 per cent of the population while the district registered 78 per cent. While some officials contended that there were many bogus voters, others attributed the reasons such as double entry of a single voter and mass migration from the rural areas to the urban areas.

In Hanamkonda constituency, as many as 70,000 new voters enrolled while in Cheriyal constituency as many as 22,726 new voters were added to the existing list. There are a total of 32,31,174 voters. Of which about 20 lakhs exercised their franchise during the elections in 1999. There was an increase of 4,29,724 voters since then.

On an average, one lakh voters increased per year from the last elections, which officials discount it as something abnormal. Next to Hanamkonda, in Parkal Assembly constituency, as many as 42,511 voters enrolled afresh. Following massive discrepancies, the district election authorities constituted 30 teams. The members would be going round door-to-door checking the

newly-enrolled voters.

Meanwhile, officials have kept ready 3,200 electronic voting machines as against the 2,500 polling booths in the district. However, in the event of simultaneous elections to the Assembly and Parliament, they would require another 1,000 machines.

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