AP elections: Naidu writes to poll chief, alleges irregularities in voters list, election guidelines

New Delhi: The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president and former chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Nara Chandrababu Naidu, on Monday approached the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) alleging irregularities in the voters’ list and violation of the poll panel guidelines.

In a letter submitted to the CEC, Naidu informed the poll panel that the ruling dispensation is mounting huge political pressure on the election machinery, which is not allowed to function independently. He appealed to the poll panel to constitute a high-power committee to regularly monitor the situation and suggest remedial measures.

Pointing out various violations in the summary revision of the electoral rolls, Naidu appealed to the poll panel to initiate necessary steps to conduct free and fair elections scheduled for the state Assembly next year. Naidu has made several representations to the Election Commission about the by-poll to the Tirupati Lok Sabha seat.

False cases

TDP leader informed the CEC that thousands of false cases have been foisted in the past four years against the political leaders belonging to rival parties, even when the leaders were staging peaceful demonstrations in a democratic way. “The administrative machinery has been silenced with registering cases, transfers and filing Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) inquiries,” he mentioned in the letter.

He alleged that the ruling dispensation in Andhra Pradesh state has set up almost a parallel election machinery in the form of grama or ward sachivalayams subverting the polling staff and bypassing the Election Commission’s instructions.

Stating that the local body elections held in AP in 2020-21 were almost made one-sided using political and muscle power along with brutal police force, Naidu said that when some candidates ventured out to file their nominations, they were either kidnapped or were forcibly shifted to unknown places from the premises of the respective returning officers. The officials were forced not to issue necessary certificates to the contesting candidates, he added.

Deleted votes

Naidu pointed out that around 40,000 votes were deleted in the Visakhapatnam (East) Assembly segment without following procedure, while 10,000 Form-7 applications have been allowed to be filed in bulk in the Parchur Assembly segment.

“While 23,000 votes were deleted in Vijayawada (Central) segment, in the Tadikonda segment, members of a family are allotted different polling booths, and in the Uravakonda segment, names of 6,000 voters were removed without following the poll panel norms,” he added.

Election commissioner asked to visit AP

Naidu wanted the teachers and other departmental staff members to be drafted for poll duty and asked the Election Commissioner and the poll officials to make frequent visits to the state to assess the situation.