Election Commission assures High Court to remove bogus voters in AP

Hyderabad: The Division Bench of the Hyderabad High Court, comprising Chief Justice T B Radhakrishnan and Justice S V Bhatt, on Tuesday heard a public interest litigation petition, filed by former MLA Kethireddy Venkata Rami Reddy.

The petitioner, in his petition, sought directions from the court to the Election Commission of India to prosecute all Booth- level officers, who are responsible for including the names of bogus voters in the electoral rolls in the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Advocate Ponnavolu Sudhakar Reddy, representing the petitioner, submitted to the court that names of minors too were included in the voters’ list. The bench asked the advocate representing the Election Commission of India to inform the court about the progress of enumerating the electoral rolls and the publication of the same in the State of AP where elections are scheduled to take place next year.

To this, ECI counsel responded that January 1, 2019 will be taken as a cut-off date for inclusion of new voters in the electoral rolls and an updated list to that effect would be published on January 4, 2019. He also assured that all bogus votes, if any, would be removed from the updated electoral list. The bench directed the ECI to file counter to inform the court. The bench posted the matter to Dec 11 for further hearing.