HC questions competence of poll panel over bogus voters issue

Delhi High Court today questioned the competence of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) after they failed to point out why errors like same photos appearing for different persons were being found in the voters' list for the upcoming assembly polls in the capital.
"We are not saying you are doing it (errors) deliberately. We are only questioning your competence," Justice Vibhu Bakhru said and observed if there was duplication of photos in the electoral list it could mean that there were persons who have more than one voter identity card under different names.
The court said "it would imply that same person can cast votes under more than one name" and directed the poll panel to verify whether errors like same photograph appearing against different names, have been translated into voter ID cards. Assembly polls in Delhi are slated on February 7.

It directed the poll panel to file an affidavit after examining the document filed by petitioner and ex-Congress leader Naresh Kumar, indicating entries in the latest electoral roll showing pictures of same person against different names.
Kumar, who had unsuccessfully contested on a Congress ticket from Mundka in the 2014 Delhi Assembly polls, has alleged the presence of large number of bogus voters in the national capital.
While directing poll authorities to file their affidavit by January 19, next date of hearing, the court observed, "This is a problem not just of this elections, but also of past ones".

It also observed that till date the authorities have only appointed a district-level officer to conduct an enquiry into why error has occurred.

On being asked, the ECI and CEO told the court that they came to know of the errors on December 8 last year. In response to this, the court questioned why the authorities were unaware about the same till then.
In defence, the poll authorities said the errors occurred due to multiple applications by the electors, mistakes in data entry or due to technical glitches which caused duplicate entries.