The total number of voters in Anantapur district is not likely to go up significantly in the 2019 general elections compared to the 2014 polls. In the 2014 elections, of the 29,81,918 eligible voters, 23,90,146 exercised their franchise, taking the polling percentage to a little above 80.
Going by the current number of eligible voters in the district — which stood at 29,24,266 — the reason for the decrease is being attributed to migration, shifting of houses and deaths. About 1.61 lakh citizens have applied for inclusion of their names in the electoral list as first-time voters.
Anantapur Assembly constituency accounts for deletion of 64,592 votes compared to the 2014 electoral rolls. District Collector G. Veerapandian says re-verification process has been taken up to ensure no genuine voter is left out, but a majority of the people, whose names were deleted, were either not present at the given address or had migrated to other towns/States.
Tahsildar in the Election wing of the district administration Bhaskar Narayana points out that a notice is served on the persons whose presence could not be verified by Booth Level Officers on ground, and when no claim is made with valid documents, it is noted as ‘shifted’. Following complaints from various political parties, the verification process has begun and results are expected in 15 days.
A BLO, who did not wish to be quoted, says that in many cases, students who had enrolled during 2014, had got jobs either in Bengaluru or Hyderabad, but wished to retain their votes in the district despite not being present physically at the address during Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls.
YSRCP sees mischief
Former MP and YSR Congress Anantapur Lok Sabha Constituency in-charge Anantha Venkataram Reddy alleges mischief is being played by the ground-level staff at the behest of some political leaders and after re-verification stringent action should be taken against the erring BLOs if any votes from the deleted 64,592 are restored.
While the blame game goes on in the media and outside, the ground reality is that none of the seven recognised political parties in the district has appointed booth-level agents in any of the 14 constituencies except for the YSRCP in Dharmavaram Assembly Constituency, who are allowed to bring in a bunch of 10 applications. "If they think some of their followers have been removed from the voters’ list, they could have made use of this provision," points out an official.
