The Hindu : Opposition memo to Governor on voters' identification

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 31, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Opposition memo to Governor on voters' identification

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Dec. 30. The heads of Opposition parties in a joint memorandum submitted to the Governor, Surjit Singh Barnala, today urged him to "thoroughly verify the 52 lakh fresh applications for voter enrolment by holding gram sabhas with proper prior publicity."

D. Srinivas, APCC president, B.V. Raghavulu, CPI(M) secretary, S. Sudhakar Reddy, CPI secretary, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS president, and Asaduddin Owaisi, MIM floor leader, urged the Governor to use his good offices to ensure that the verification of electoral rolls was completed before the Assembly election process begins. They said that of the 52 lakh voter enrolments, 20 lakhs were verified by Election Commission teams "who found that 10 lakh voters were bogus." The ruling party, they alleged, was objecting to the rejection of bogus voters.

The memorandum while charging that an "undemocratic environment" was prevalent under the "unethical" administrative practices of the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, and his party leaders in the State, called upon the Governor to restrain Mr. Naidu and his Cabinet members from crossing the "lakshman rekha."

The leaders sought the display of the boothwise list of names of fresh applicants and deletions, a larger and impartial official machinery to ensure that bogus voters were eliminated, identity cards to about 1.42 crore voters who were yet to get these, and polling stations in the localities of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, minorities and other weaker sections.

They said as the earlier issual of photo ID cards was not comprehensive, duplicates should be issued free of cost to the needy. In the case of polling stations for the poor, change of the localities in the name of rationalisation and shifting to the upper class areas should be rectified.

The memorandum charged the Government with misuse of the State exchequer in the name of "progress reports" and "Chaduvula Panduga" where Mr. Naidu "tried to teach electoral issues to kids."

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