The Congress on Tuesday alleged that more than 1.45 lakh names had been deleted from the voters’ list in Mysuru district without citing any reason and demanded a high-level probe into the issue.
Addressing a press conference in Mysuru, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) spokesperson H.A. Venkatesh said the details of the deletion of names had been obtained from the Election Commission’s officially announced list of deleted names.
Though there is a provision to delete the names of voters, who had either died, had shifted their houses or for other purposes, the same should be mentioned in the remarks column alongside. “The reason for the deletion should be mandatorily mentioned in the column. But, the remarks column is empty”, he said.
He demanded a high-level probe by a Supreme Court or High Court judge into the “large-scale” deletion of names from the voters’ list. The inquiry should be completed in 30 days’ time and action should be taken against the culprits, Mr. Venkatesh said adding that the party leadership will formally lodge a complaint with the officials of Election Commission of India soon.
A total of 1,45,908 names had been deleted from 11 constituencies of Mysuru district, he said. Giving details of the deletions, Mr. Venkatesh said 17,856 names had been deleted from Krishnaraja Assembly constituency, 16,242 from Chamaraja, 18,007 from Narasimharaja, 11,987 from Varuna, 12,367 from T. Narsipur, 17,847 from Chamundeshwari, 10,604 from K.R. Nagar, 10,479 from H.D. Kote, 10,220 from Hunsur, 8,570 from Periyapatna and 11,724 names from Nanjangud Assembly constituency.
He alleged that the BJP was behind the large-scale deletion of names of people and demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the regard. “The BJP is resorting to such unholy methods only to win elections”, Mr. Venkatesh said while recalling that the names of several voters belonging to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, Muslims and Christians were deleted in some of the constituencies in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits.
Cautioning the people against the alleged efforts of the BJP to “snatch their voting rights”, Mr. Venkatesh called upon the people to ascertain if their voting rights were in tact.
Meanwhile, the Congress has also voiced its suspicion over the new EVMs, which have been brought to Mysuru recently for use in the coming elections in the 11 Assembly constituencies of the district.
KPCC spokesperson M. Lakshmana, at a separate press conference, pointed out that a total of 5,635 ballot units and 3,958 control units, which had been brought to Mysuru for use in the coming elections, had not been used before and were “brand new”. He also wondered how the government could entrust the task of programming the EVMs and control units to engineers of private company.
He said the Congress will soon ask the Deputy Commissioner of Mysuru Rajendra to arrange for a demonstration of all the EVMs and Control Units before members of all the political parties and clarify their doubts.
