Citizens Forum, an organisation representing residents in Ward 71 (formerly Wards 23 and 24) has alleged large scale deletion of voters from electoral rolls.
At a press meet held here on Friday, Forum president Parashar Pandya said the Coimbatore Corporation, after delimitation, had formed Ward 71 by combining six booths of the old Ward 23 and four booths of the old Ward 24.
But in forming the new Ward 71, it had come to light that names of more than 2,500 voters were missing. The Forum checked the old voters’ list – used during the 2019 Parliamentary election – and the new voters’ list.
The Forum found that while bringing together 10 booths to form the new Ward 71, there should be 11,701 voters, but there were only 9,159 voters.
Door-to-door check
After a random door-to-door check in the locality, the Forum found that though the voters were present in the houses and had been living there for over 40 years, their names were missing.
The Forum wanted to know how such a large scale deletion had happened, was there a field verification before the deletion, who was responsible for the deletion, who was behind it and what was their objective in doing so.
It also feared that across the city the deletion could be on a bigger scale as the Coimbatore Corporation had 100 wards.
He said that the Forum had petitioned the District Collector and the Corporation Deputy Commissioner to look into the issue as the deletion was an anti-democratic move aimed at depriving citizens of their voting rights.
