Date:13/12/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/12/13/stories/2003121304580400.htm

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Bogus voters galore?

By Our Staff Reporter

GUNTUR DEC. 12. A small tiled house has 116 voters in Guntur-II Assembly constituency. Three more houses have 50, 25 and 20 votes each. It sounds incredible. Yet, this is the bitter truth.

The Lok Satta went on a survey today to identify bogus votes.

A small house with Door No. 7-17-369 in the fifth lane of Mallikharjunapet has 116 voters. The other houses 7-17-369/1, 369/2 and 369/3 have the remaining votes.

Those living in the houses were aghast to learn from the Lok Satta convener, Konda Sivarami Reddy, that their houses had a whopping number of voters. In reality, only 14 voters were present in all the four houses together. The remaining 198 votes were bogus. The voters' lists (page no.143 and 114) of Guntur-II constituency also indicated that some of the bogus voters obtained photo-identity cards also.

The local people said that their area alone could be having around 2,500 bogus votes. Lok Satta activists were surprised if the district administration could really cleanse the voters' lists and prepare an accurate one in a short span. What was more interesting is that officials in the lower rung were not given any funds to serve notices on voters who did not obtain photo-identity cards. How sacred this exercise could turn out to be remained a million dollar question, said Mr. Reddy.