Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala on Thursday approached the Kerala High Court alleging multiple entries of same voters in the electoral rolls for the upcoming Assembly polls in the state and seeking to freeze the names of bogus voters in the list.
He also sought orders restricting such bogus voters from casting votes.
Chennithala, in his petition, has said that there are large scale discrepancies in the electoral rolls for the Assembly polls, multiple entries of the same voters are in the voters list published by the Election Commission.
Chennithala said in his petition that he had approached the Election Commission seeking to freeze the names of the bogus voters, but as the Commission has not taken any action in this regard, he is seeking the intervention of the court.
Contenting that such large scale electoral roll discrepancies could not have been effected without organised action and involvement of government employees, the petitioner sought action against those who are responsible for the bogus entries in the electoral rolls.
Stating that the manipulations in the electoral rolls were done with a calculated move to manipulate voters, Chennithala sought to issue directions to the Election Commission of India(ECI) and the Chief Electoral Officer( CEO) Kerala to rectify the defects in the electoral rolls, prevent bogus voters from casting votes and initiate criminal action against those discovered responsible for the illegal entries in the electoral rolls.
Earlier, Ramesh Chennithala has alleged that there are as many as four lakh bogus voters in the electoral rolls for the upcoming Assembly polls.He had brought this to the attention of the CEO, Kerala.
The CEO had acknowledged that they have found thousands of bogus voters in the rolls after initial assessment.
“Four lakh bogus voters have entered the voters list, when the difference between the UDF and LDF in an election is just between one lakh and two lakh,” Chennithala wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. Through bogus voting, CPI-M is trying to sabotage the election process, Chennithala alleged.
However, CM Vijayan down played the allegations of Chennithala. He said there were no organised move to manipulate the electoral rolls.