The Hindu : DMK questions drop in number of voters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 04, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

DMK questions drop in number of voters

By Karthik Subramanian

CHENNAI Feb. 3. A reported drop of six lakh voters in the city's 14 Assembly constituencies came under scrutiny at an all-party meeting convened by the Chennai Corporation recently to discuss the arrangements for the Mayoral polls.

The DMK called for an official explanation for the substantial drop in numbers. While the total number of voters in the list prepared by the civic agency during the local body elections in January 2001 was 38.37 lakhs and the total number of polling stations was 3,621, the number had now dropped to 32.74 lakhs and the number of stations identified by the Corporation was 3,324.

"This is difficult to believe because voters in the extended areas have been included in the list this time. The officials were not able to give a proper explanation when the query was raised during the meeting," the DMK floor leader, C. V. Malayan, said. Corporation officials said the fall in number of voters was an outcome of the extensive door-to-door investigation taken up by the field staff previous year. Though the civic agency had taken up the task of inclusion and deletion of names from the voter's list over the last four years, the records were altered only in case of inclusion.

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DMK questions drop in number of voters