Tripura: Over 46,000 'fake voters' scrapped from list

Agartala, Jan 12:Over 46,000 names were deleted from the electoral rolls during their revision for the Tripura assembly polls scheduled for February 14, said state's Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Ashutosh Jindal while speaking to the media at the civil secretariat. According to one source, names of 700-800 voters on an average were scrapped from the list in each constituency.

The exercise, in a way, justified the allegations raised by the Congress that the ruling CPI(M) was entering fake names in the voters' list and on the basis of the complaint of the main opposition party, the Election Commission sent central observers to the state a number of times and it was based on their reports that the fake voters were identified and scrapped. Questions have also been raised about the 75,090 new voters who found place in the revised list.

Jindal, who said that applications could be made to enrol names in the voters' list or file any claims and objections till January 17, however, did not say anything clearly whether those found tampering with the voters' list would be penalised or not. The date for hearing on the claims and objections would be announced later.

He also said a toll-free phone number (1953) will be started at the state election commission office from Monday and information related to the voters' list could be accessed between 10 am and 8 pm. The new voters this year will be provided with the photo identity card by January 25.

Over 23 lakh voters, nearly half of whom are women, are set to cast ballots in the assembly elections. The number of electorates of the state has increased from 22,77,415 to 23,52,505 for the next elections, final photo electoral rolls in the 60 assembly seats published here on Saturday, revealed. It is a 3.3 per cent increase from last time.

The CEO said this year, out of the total electorates, the number of female voters is 11,97,849. Copies of photo electoral rolls had been given to almost all parties, including the CPI, CPI(M), BJP and Congress.

In the 2008 assembly polls, the total number of voters was 20.38 lakh and polling percentage was 91.3 per cent. The number of candidates was 313, out of whom, 30 were women. The total number of polling stations was 2,391, which has increased to 3,018 this time. Jindal said if needed, auxiliary polling centres would be added to the main ones.

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