Congress delegation seeks fresh voters’ list after mapping, flags ‘lapses’

A delegation of Congress leaders led by Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to State Election Commissioner G.S. Sangreshi, alleging serious lapses in the ongoing voter list revision ahead of the local body elections and seeking immediate corrective steps, including preparation of a fresh roll after proper mapping.

Addressing reporters after the meeting, Mr. Shivakumar said that in view of the upcoming Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), zilla, taluk, and gram panchayat elections, the State Election Commission (SEC) had undertaken revision of the voters’ list, but “there are many lapses in the revised list”.

Without verification

He alleged that genuine voters had been deleted without proper verification and that members of the same family residing at a single address had been allotted to different polling booths. “The mapping is not being done properly. The voters’ list must be mapped correctly with residences and votes,” he said.

The memorandum sought a comprehensive audit of recent deletions in the affected constituencies and restoration of all eligible voters who had been wrongly removed after due verification. It also demanded that members of the same household should not be arbitrarily distributed across different polling stations.

New voters’ list

Mr. Shivakumar said the party had urged the commission to prepare a new voters’ list after proper mapping and to allow party-appointed booth-level agents (BLAs) to accompany the commission’s BLOs during field verification. “We have appealed to revise the voters’ list within the legal framework,” he said.

The petition also called for suspension of BLOs allegedly involved in irregularities, including splitting family votes across booths and removing names of minorities and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from the rolls.

Further, the Congress sought an opportunity for political parties to review and verify the revised electoral rolls before their final publication.

“In view of the upcoming local body elections, the voters’ list must be corrected now itself. If something goes wrong, it will bring a bad name to the government and the State Election Commission. That is why we have raised this issue in advance,” Mr. Shivakumar said.

Confusion?

On whether a separate revision by the SEC would create confusion, he said the commission had the authority to undertake the process. “The older version of the voters’ list is not correct, and hence they need to prepare a new list after mapping,” he said.

The delegation included Ministers Ramalinga Reddy and Dinesh Gundu Rao, BAMUL Chairman D.K. Suresh, MLAs Rizwan Arshad and A.C. Srinivas, and MLCs Puttanna and Srinivas.