A steady drop in the number of voters in East Godavari district is being attributed to the successful weeding of bogus votes by the officials and a spurt in migration by the academics while the Opposition blames it on a ‘conspiracy hatched by the ruling party’.
In a span of two-and-a-half years, there has been a decrease of 1.45 lakh voters in East Godavari district and the drop could be seen in 18 of the 19 Assembly constituencies. Rampachodavaram is the lone constituency where there is an increase in the number. However, this is mainly because of the merger of four mandals from the neighbouring Telangana.
The Election Commission of India’s draft publication of electors for January-2017 has shown a steady decrease in voters – both male and female – in the district that accounts for the highest number of electors in Andhra Pradesh (Source: Special Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls, 2015).
According to the draft publication that is available in the public domain, there were 38,49,771 voters in the district in January, 2014, and a majority of them cast their vote in the general elections. The number of electors plummeted to 38,05,354 by January 2016, when the revised electoral roll was published last. As per the recent draft, there is a further plunge with only 37,04,882 figuring in the rolls, indicating a drop of 1,44,889 from the May, 2016 general elections to the present date.
Migration of voters
“Agrarian crisis looms large in the rural pockets and migrations are taking place on a daily basis. People are leaving for places like Hyderabad in search of work after the advent of farm mechanisation,” observes I. Dosagiri Rao, professor at the department of political science and public administration in the Andhra University’s PG Centre here.
“On the other hand, most of the youngsters are not evincing interest to enrol as voters. Even among the enrolled, many are forced to leave their native place in search of either a job or to pursue education,” explains Prof. Rao, also the author of a book titled ‘Social Change and Political Development in East Godavari District.’
District Collector H. Arun Kumar highlights the accuracy with which the rolls are being revised.
“A door-to-door verification has been conducted and the votes of those who migrated or deceased have been deleted from the rolls. The linkage of Aadhar number to the voter ID has helped us avoid duplication of voters,” he points out. Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) district unit Duvva Seshu Babji, however, accuses the government of using the revision of rolls as an opportunity to take vendetta on the Opposition parties.
“There are several instances of removal of genuine voters from the list, just because they cast their vote to the Opposition, but not to the ruling party,” he says.
