BJP demands steps to rectify voters list for SMC poll

The Himachal Pradesh BJP today demanded immediate steps to make corrections in the voters list for the ensuing Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) poll and alleged that the entire exercise undertaken by the Returning Officer was as "farce".
A delegation led by former state BJP chief and Shimla MLA Suresh Bharadwaj and state BJP vice president Ganesh Dutt presented a memorandum to the State Election Commissioner P Mitra here.
They alleged irregularities and large scale omission of names of voters from the lists.
It is strange that while the population in the SMC area is more than 1.70 lakh, the number of voters was just 63,000, the BJP leaders claimed.

They alleged that names of 400 to 500 voters have been "deleted" in almost all the wards.
The delegation claimed that the number of voters was only 171 in Panthaghati Ward, 251 in Upper Dhalli Ward, 364 in Bhattakuffar Ward while the population of these wards was 6,785; 2,230 and 4,279, respectively, as per the 2011 Census.

They said the number of voters had been "drastically reduced in some of the wards and distribution of voters in 34 wards and the booths was uneven and imbalanced".
The BJP urged the Election Commissioner to immediately intervene and ask the Returning Officer to include the "deleted" names and remove other discrepancies.

Returning officer Rohan Chand Thakur, who is also the Deputy Commissioner, has asked the political parties to file objections and claims and said corrective action would be taken.