Criminal cases to be filed against fraudulent claims for deletion

Visakhapatnam: Those who are misusing the National Voters’ Services Portal (NVSP) requesting ‘bulk’ deletion from the voters list by submitting false details will face stringent punishment as it is a criminal offence, cautioned District Collector K Bhaskar here on Sunday.

Addressing media persons at the Collectorate on the issue, Bhaskar warned the miscreants that they would be traced through the IP addresses they had logged in. “Though it takes a while to identify the offenders, they will certainly not go scot-free as many of them had submitted false information of the deceased persons requesting for removal from the voters’ list though they are alive,” the District Collector said, adding that the offenders were grossly misusing the online facility given to voters to register, correct the entries in electoral roll and track the application status, among other features.

He stated that there were about 64,260 requests received so far for the deletion of voters through NVSP Form 7 and the updated list would be shared with media on a daily basis. “Cases have already been registered in Gajuwaka, Anakapalle, S Rayavaram among other areas against the unidentified persons who committed the offence. 

However, it will take some time to trace them as some of them have logged in through smart phones,” he added. About the removal of names based on the request coming in from miscreants, Bhaskar said the process would take several rounds of verification as the request would have to pass through electoral registration officers at multiple levels.

He said the ‘deletion or objection in electoral roll’ on the portal should not be misused at any cost and for those who want to remove the voter’s name due to his or her demise, appropriate documents such as death certificate or a letter from the family members should be produced.  

The District Collector said there would be about 123 polling booths set up in Srikakulam (39), Vizianagaram (36) and Visakhapatnam (48) for the forthcoming elections. Bhaskar also alerted that the last date for filing nominations for teachers’ constituency polls is Tuesday.