Over 9-lakh bogus voters registered in Mumbai, claims Congress

Mumbai, Jan 16 (IANS) The Mumbai Congress on Wednesday made a sensational claim that around 9 lakh bogus voters may have sneaked into the city's electoral rolls as preparations peak for the 2019 general elections.

Addressing the media, city Congress President Sanjay Nirupam showed evidences of how hundreds of names of the allegedly fake voters figure in electoral rolls in different assembly segments, making up the six Lok Sabha seats in the country's commercial capital.

When contacted, an official from the Maharashtra State Election Commission (M-SEC) said that the electoral rolls is not within its jurisdiction and that is dealt with solely by the Election Commission of India (ECI), New Delhi.

"We are not concerned with the electoral rolls. These are prepared by the ECI and we use it for our election-related purposes," the official, declining to be identified, told IANS.

However, Joint Chief Election Officer Anil Walvi told IANS that the responsibility of this rests with the district collectors and that they would know the correct position.

According to Nirupam, the party's investigations revealed how a single person had multiple voter IDs for different election booths in the same constituency.

"In some cases, the same person is shown under two different names, with differing ages, residing at two separate addresses and linked to different voting booths within the same constituency," Nirupam said, showing the relevant proofs.

In two sample constituencies alone, the party found multiple identities of several alleged voters, ranging from two to 11 identities, proving these are bogus voters, he pointed out.

"From 638 voter IDs in Magathane constituency, only 182 were genuine and out of 552 voter IDs in Dindoshi segment only 290 were real. Our rough estimate is there are between 15,000-20,000 such fake voters registered in each of the 35 assembly seats, or between 125,000-150,000 in each parliamentary constituency," Nirupam said.

"With around 900,000 fake voters in Mumbai, it is clear there is a big 'voter mafia' operating in the city who are working to the advantage of some political parties," he alleged.

Nirupam said that over 15,000 bogus voters were already deleted from Anushakti Nagar, Mankhurd and Chandivali constituencies recently.

With the draft electoral rolls expected to be finalized by Jan 31, he demanded to know whether the ECI and the concerned district collectorates would take action against these fake voters, so that the genuine voters are not deprived of their voting rights.