SC seeks EC's response on duplicate voters in MP, Rajasthan

The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the Election Commission's response on a plea by Congress leaders alleging the existence of a large number of duplicate voters in electoral rolls in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

A bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan also sought a response from the State Election Commission as senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Congress leader Kamal Nath, told the court that the EC was denying them the voters' list in text mode in Madhya Pradesh citing privacy whereas in Rajasthan it was available in text mode.

Singhvi said the Election Commission's manual itself mandates that text mode voters' list would be made available to the contesting candidates and political parties. The court was informed that the last date for raising objections to the voters' list ended on August 21.

Nath sought direction to extend the date of raising objections to the voters' list. The court now posted the matter for hearing on August 31.

The plea said that directions should be issued to publish the list in a "text format as per rules" and expeditious decisions taken on all complaints before its final publication.

Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath has moved the top court raising the Madhya Pradesh list while Sachin Pilot has taken up the Rajasthan case. Besides the voters' list, there are other issues related to the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT).

The court was told that they had pointed to the presence of around 60 lakh duplicate voters in 102 Assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh and 42 lakh in Rajasthan, Singhvi said.

Senior counsel Vivek Tankha said that after initially contesting the presence of 60 lakh duplicate voters in the list in Madhya Pradesh, they had deleted 24 lakh names.

Speaking to mediapersons after the hearing, Tankha said that besides duplicate votes, there were issues of fake votes as well.

He said in one instance in Madhya Pradesh, a small dwelling showed 20 or more voters while in Rajasthan there were 100 voters with the same address.

The plea filed through advocate Aljo K. Joseph stated that sought direction for EC to conduct tests on VVPAT machines in "at least 10 per cent randomly selected polling stations in each Assembly constituency".

Such tests will ensure "free and fair elections" in Madhya Pradesh, which goes to polls in November-December this year, the plea said.

--IANS

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