Following BJP and TDP complaints, the EC prunes the Andhra Pradesh voter list, deleting 5.65 lakh bogus entries

The Election Commission of India revealed on Wednesday that at least 5.65 lakh people on the draft electoral lists for Andhra Pradesh are either duplicate entries, deceased, or have moved out of the state permanently. The Election Commission said that the names that were highlighted as “fake names” in the state voters’ list had been removed after verification in response to complaints from the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar was in the southern state, which will hold simultaneous elections for the Assembly and Lok Sabha this year, for two days alongside Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel.

Speaking to the media, CEC Rajiv Kumar said that out of the 14.48 lakh voter identities filed, 5.65 lakh were discovered to be duplicate entries, deceased, or permanently relocated outside of the state.

“There are excellent plans in place for the 2024 parliamentary elections. Assuring all parties involved of the greatest possible election experience this year, he said, “Andhra Pradesh is the first state of visit to review and consult stakeholders for what more needs to be done.”

Daggubati Purandeswari, the head of the state BJP, filed a protest with the EC on Tuesday, accusing the state of having “fake voters.” She had claimed that voter cards’ images were being “morphed” by the governing YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) to facilitate fraudulent voting.

TDP leader and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu claimed in a letter to the election board last month that the electoral lists were not being updated in accordance with the procedure. Despite the fact that the regulations explicitly outline the process for removing numerous registrations, he said that this is not being followed since multiple or duplicate entries have been found in a number of constituencies.

ILLUSORY MOVEMENTS
Naidu had also brought up the purported removal of opposition party supporters’ names from the list without proper verification.

Explaining the situation, Chief Electoral Commissioner Kumar said that every deletion done from January 2022 to August 2023 was re-verified by District Election Officers (DEO), and just 13,061 (0.61%) of the 21 lakh removals made were determined to be wrong. He said that they have now been fixed.

The CEC said that incidents indicating an unlikely number of voters living at a single address were fixed after verification. According to reports, 1.57 lakh households had more than ten voters. It was discovered that there were more than 20 lakh voters in these addresses overall. Following re-verification, the draft issued in October 2023 showed that there were 65,964 fewer homes with more than ten votes, and the total number of voters had decreased to 9.49 lakh.

The CEC said that all concerns voiced by the state’s political parties have been taken into consideration and that maintaining the “health and purity” of the voting registers is still a top priority.

ANDHRA PRADESH’S POLL PREPAREDNESS
The Election Commission wrapped up a two-day assessment of vote readiness in Vijayawada on Wednesday in advance of the 2019 Assembly and parliamentary elections.

In order to guarantee free, fair, and inducement-free elections, the CEC has instructed officials to provide an even playing field for all parties and requested stringent steps from the district administration and enforcement authorities.

June marks the conclusion of both the current Lok Sabha’s term and that of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly. There are 25 Lok Sabha seats and 175 Assembly seats in the state. With 151 of the 175 seats, the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) won a landslide victory in the 2019 Assembly elections. Two million of the state’s four million voters are female. On January 22, the final roll will be released.

The gender ratio on Andhra Pradesh’s electoral registers has steadily improved since 2014; it is now 1,036 women for every 1,000 males, up from 1,013 in the previous year. With 5.05 lakh more voters after October 2023, the state would have 7.88 lakh first-time voters.