Based on the reports submitted by two teams constituted to probe the Congress’s allegations that there were at least 60 lakh bogus voters listed in Madhya Pradesh, the Election Commission has not found any substance in the charges.
A delegation of Congress leaders, led by Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, had recently met the Election Commission to raise the issue.
Subsequently, the electoral body constituted two teams for verification. While one team covered the Assembly constituencies of Narela and Bhojpur, the other examined the records of the Hoshangabad and the Seoni-Malwa Assembly constituencies. The teams reached Madhya Pradesh on June 4.
Corrected since 2016
“It seems the complaint referred to the figure of about 68 lakh duplicate entries that were identified by the Commission in 2016. Thereafter, the records have been corrected in most cases. The process is under way and by the Assembly polls, the remaining discrepancies are expected to be resolved,” said an official.
During the visit, one of the EC teams detected very small number of such entries, which are further being verified. “In one constituency, data pertaining to 20 polling stations was examined in three days. Our de-duplication software initially identified about 46,000 duplicate entries and on verification, the number went down to 2,442. Of these, a total of 2,397 entries were found to be genuine. In the rest of 44 cases, the team found that 12 voters had passed away and some had shifted residence,” said the official.
The official said the number of discrepancies was miniscule. Both the ground reports will be placed before the Commission for evaluation.
