Meet Sonia Gandhi's family at Ulhasnagar in Mumbai

Mumbai, Jan 11: With the issue of bogus ration cards giving the government a headache for some time now, this piece of news has brought the matter back to the limelight. A social activist in Mumbai's Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation (UMC) premises was reported to be holding a ration card under Congress President Sonia Gandhi's name. The card also has the names of Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka.

The ration card is understood to be carrying Sonia's Delhi address and shows their annual income as Rs 30,000. Issued by the Thane rationing office, this gross negligence by the officials have emerged in spite of the fact mentioned that Sonia's address in Delhi is 10, Janpath.

Highlighting the matter, an RTI activist of the Ulhasnagar Bachao Abhiyan, Premchand Jha has intimated the matter to the Election Commissioner and has requested him to disqualify ration cards as identity proof for casting votes during polls. It is evident with this case that just about anyone can make fake ration cards.

Jha who brought out the matter, speaking to a popular newspaper stated, "Last Saturday, when I was returning with my colleague Praveen Pandey from the UMC, I found the ration card lying in the parking lot." Jha said "When I checked it, I was shocked to see the names of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, her son Rahul and daughter Priyanka on it."

Pandey also spoke on the curious case and said, "It is shocking that the ration card has the signature of rationing officer, Mr Kamble, who has cleared it on August 7, 2011. Since then, the person who had got this bogus ration card has even taken kerosene twice from the ration shop in the name of the Gandhi family."

Pandey added, "It is often found that bogus ration cards are used as identity proof for voting. With municipal polls round the corner in several parts of the state, such bogus ration cards may be used for large-scale for voting. This is the reason why we have written an application to the state election commissioner (SEC), requesting them to disqualify ration cards as identity proof to avoid bogus voting."

With the poll fever hotting up in 5 states in the upcoming Assembly Elections, people can get a Voters ID card on the basis of their ration cards. A political party had recently unearthed as many as 52,500 bogus voters in Ulhasnagar alone. Following the expose, the SEC had ordered UMC chief Ashok Rankhambh to remove all bogus names from the voters list.

OneIndia News