Congress leader and KPCC spokesman P.H. Neeralakeri has said that the BJP and its members are systematically getting names of those voters opposed to them deleted from the voter list.
Addressing presspersons in Dharwad on Thursday, Mr. Neeralakeri said that Deputy Commissioner of Dharwad and Election Officer Gurudatta Hegde recently issued a clarification about the lacunae in the revision of voter list raised by them.
“There should have been 3 lakh voters in Hubballi Dharwad West Assembly Constituency. However, there is no clear answer about the 20,974 names that have been deleted from the voter list,” he said.
Clarifying that they are not making an allegation on the election officials, he said that they are fighting for the rectification of mistakes committed during revision.
Mr. Neeralakeri said that he will agree to the deletion of names if they are of deceased people. “But I can show people who are alive but whose names have been deleted saying that they are dead. Let them visit houses and verify,” he said.
He also said that local MLA Arvind Bellad is the reason for selective deletion of names from the voter list and his close aides working in the municipal corporation are acting according to his instructions.
He urged the officials to carry out the revision honestly and revise the list after ground level survey instead of listening to political party workers. The Election Officer has not clarified on the issues raised in an earlier complaint, he said.
To a query, Mr. Neeralakeri said that as people have decided to throw the BJP out of power, the party supported by RSS is employing illegal means to delete the names of its opponents from the voter list.
