With just a few days left for the Kerala Assembly polls the battle for votes has heated up in the state with the Opposition accusing Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of hatching a conspiracy to manipulate votes.
The Opposition’s charge comes amid the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) admitting that double entries were found in the voters' list. The CEO’s statement comes in the backdrop of an inquiry conducted in view of a complaint lodged by Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala.
However, Vijayan on Tuesday denied all allegations and dismissed the Opposition’s charge claiming that there was no "organised move" behind the incident.
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The CM said it has become clear that a woman, whose name was found to have entered multiple times in the voters' list, was a Congress sympathiser and her name was added into the list by the Congress party workers.
Chennithala was actually levelling charges against the multiple entries in the voters' list made by his own party workers, Vijayan told reporters in Alappuzha.
The Chief Minister was referring to Kumari, a 61-year-old voter in Uduma segment in northern Kasaragod district, to whom Chennithala had alleged that five Election Identity Cards had been issued.
The woman had later told media that she was a Congress supporter and she had no knowledge about the multiple entries of her name in the voters' list.
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An electoral officer was on Monday suspended, pending enquiry, after five voter identity cards in the name of Kumari were found generated in the computer system at Uduma.
Chennithala had raised serious allegations of fraud and irregularities in the preparation of voters' list in Kerala ahead of the April 6 assembly polls.
Citing the voters' list published by the Election Commission on January 20 2021, he had said that bogus votes have been added extensively in each constituency across the state.
A clear conspiracy at the state level was behind the attempt to create bogus voters in all the 140 constituencies in the state, Chennithala said.
On the charges of the Opposition leader about irregularities in preparation of voter's lists, CEO Teeka Ram Meena had said they conducted a detailed probe into the 1,600 'multiple entries' flagged by him and found there were 590 double entries, which was nothing new and was there in many states due to a variety of reasons.
He also warned that strict action would be taken against such officers if foul play was detected in the voter card issuing exercise.
(With PTI inputs)
