Collector warns bogus voters of stern action

Tirupati: Amid several complaints on bogus voters' enrolment in the Graduates MLC elections, Collector and district election officer K Venkataramana Reddy warned that stern action will be taken on those trying to cast bogus votes. Addressing the media at the Collectorate here on Friday, he said that after receiving various complaints on bogus voters, verification was done which has proved that the mistakes occurred while entering the data in the computer.

The mistakes took place in the limits of six polling centres out of 138 centres. There are 110 voters with the same door number which happened due to the mistakes in data entry. But all those voters are there at other door numbers. Action will be taken on those responsible for errors in data entry. In view of the complaints from several quarters on the irregularities in voters' enrolment, 14 polling centres were identified as problematic where the process will be webcasted and video recording will also be ensured.

The polling officers will have the list of absentees, shifted and death (ASD) and will verify the voter slip and whether the ID card is original. Then only the voters will be allowed to cast their votes. Steps were initiated to prevent bogus votes and if anyone is found to have cast a bogus vote, a case will be filed and they will have to face serious action.

The micro-observers will be there at every polling centre and record every happening inside the polling centre and submit directly to the Election Commission's observers without any involvement of the district election officer.

All steps have been taken to conduct the polling in a peaceful atmosphere on March 13 and no one should have any apprehensions. The polling material will be distributed to presiding officers (POs) and APOs on March 12, he maintained. Meanwhile, Tirupati district has a total of 86,941 graduate voters while there are 6,132 teacher voters.