Accusing the Communist Party of India (Marxist) of large scale transfer of votes from neighbouring areas to the Kannur Assembly constituency going ahead of the by-election on November 7, K. Sudhakaran, MP, has demanded the removal of District Collector V.K. Balakrishnan as the District Election Officer alleging that the latter was apathetic to their complaints about the vote transfer and was behaving in a partisan manner favouring the CPI(M).
Speaking at a press conference here on Thursday, Mr. Sudhakaran said the election authorities here were understood to have received 22,000-odd applications for transfer of voters to the Kannur constituency in the guise of general revision of the voters list. He said the CPI(M) voters from the neighbouring constituencies were applying for the transfer to the Kannur Assembly constituency by producing their declarations and bogus residential certificates issued by the grama panchayat secretaries or village officers. Despite repeated complaints before the District Collector, no inquiry was being conducted to ascertain whether the residential certificates were genuine or fake, he said, adding that the election officials privately admitted that nearly 10,000-odd voters had been transferred so far to be included in the revised voters list to be published in a couple of days.
Mr. Sudhakaran said the Election Commission and the Chief Electoral Officer in the State would be approached to demand that the transfer of voters under the general revision be suspended and the by-election be held on the basis of the electoral roll used for the Lok Sabha election.
