Cong asks EC to correct electoral rolls before LS polls

Congress today asked the Election Commission to correct electoral rolls in three states, citing duplicity of names and EPIC numbers of around 31 lakh voters in Andhra Pradesh and 11 lakh each in Delhi and Karnataka.
In a three-page letter to Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath, Congress Secretary and incharge of legal and human rights department K C Mittal asked him to set up special cells to correct the electoral rolls before the next general elections and weed out duplicate voters.
Asking the EC to take cognisance of the anomaly of duplicate votes in electoral rolls on a priority basis, Mittal said an analysis of the rolls in Andhra Pradesh has found that there were 5.78 per cent (31 lakh) duplicate voters in 294 constituencies in the state, while those in Delhi are around 10 per cent which amount to about 11 lakh voters.

In Karnataka, he said it has been found that in 28 constituencies in Bangalore City alone, there are 11 lakh who might be duplicate voters.
"From a cursory analysis of electoral rolls from New Delhi, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, it indicates several anomalies to be brought to your kind notice. There appear to be a significant number of duplicate voters. We have also observed a large number of deletions when two electoral rolls back-to-back were compared.
"Irregularities substantiated affect the conduct of fair and proper elections. In these circumstances, it is necessary that the EC conducts an extensive verification of electoral rolls all over the country to delete such names which appear in more than one constituency," Mittal said in his letter to the CEC.

He said since it was not possible to conduct such an exercise at the booth level, the EC should constitute special teams to conduct specification and survey of electoral rolls to remove all discrepancies and anomalies.
"This will enable the Commission to prepare a proper and genuine electoral roll for each constituency for the ensuing general elections in 2014," he said.