TDP to keep surveillance on voter lists

Tirupati: Thinking that everything is not going well with the voter lists ahead of next elections, the Telugu Desam party (TDP) has decided to keep track of them by going door-to-door to find out the genuineness of the lists. The party was of the view that several irregularities took place in the voter lists and there was a huge difference between the official voters list and the one they gave to the political parties.

During the Assembly constituency level meetings in Tirupati Parliament limits, the leaders raised their serious concerns over the electoral lists. It was felt that the votes of those who may vote for TDP have been removed from the official voters list or transferred to other areas. At the same time, the names of several outsiders have been included under different booths.

The party wanted to focus first on the voters lists from now which it feels is the most important exercise. Explaining the strategy, TDP Tirupati Parliamentary constituency president G Narasimha Yadav told The Hans India that Opposition leaders should be more alert as the ruling party cadres have been making a big mess with the voter lists by managing to include 15,000-25,000 bogus votes in each constituency.

The party will now verify the lists through its booth, unit and cluster committees right from the village level. The committee members will try to find out the bogus voters and the names of those having enrolled under more than one booth. The names of those residing elsewhere will also be searched and brought into the notice of the Election Commission (EC). The party has implemented cluster level strategies during Tirupati Lok Sabha elections which now will be implemented in the entire state. At each cluster around 25,000 votes will be there and accordingly 10-11 clusters will be there. The responsibility of verifying the voter lists will be entrusted to the committees and only those having interest to take up the work will be included as members irrespective of their seniority. The irregularities in voter lists will no doubt play a key role in deciding the fortunes of candidates. The objective of the verification process is to provide the voting right to only eligible voters. After the constituency level meetings in Tirupati parliament limits, a detailed action plan will be chalked out to get approval from the party high command, Yadav said.