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It was on January 12 that K Mohammed, a resident of Uppala in the Kasaragod district of Kerala, received a notice from the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO). The notice summoned him to a hearing at the Manjeswaram Taluk office on February 13. Initially, Mohammed was confused about the notice. However, he later learned that it stated he was ‘not an Indian citizen’ and required him to provide proof of his nationality.
“I felt so tense. I was born and raised here, studied here, and my home is also here. Suddenly, someone was saying that I am not an Indian citizen and that really made me anxious,” Mohammed recalled. He is a voter in Manjeswaram, a constituency where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost by a razor-thin margin in both the 2016 and 2021 Assembly polls.
Mohammed was called for a hearing after Lokesh Nonda S, Kasragod district secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), filed a complaint. In his complaint submitted in Form 7, he sought the removal of Mohammed's name from the voter list on the grounds that he ‘does not possess Indian citizenship.’
Form 7 is the specific statutory document used to contest a person's inclusion in the electoral rolls or to request the removal of a name as part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), a large-scale, door-to-door initiative aimed at verifying and updating electoral rolls. In Kerala, the SIR process began on November 4, along with similar efforts in nine states and three Union Territories, marking the second phase of this campaign across the country.
On February 13, the following day, Mohammed attended the hearing and presented his Ration Card, Voter ID, and Aadhar card to prove his nationality.
False complaint
Mohammed, a voter in booth number 128 of the Manjeswaram Assembly constituency, was born in 1970. Now 55 years old, he studied at the Bekur school until class 10. Later, he began working as a daily wage labourer.
After the hearing, the authorities found that the complaint was baseless. As per a Facebook post by K Imbasekhar IAS, the Kasargod district collector, the complainant appeared for the hearing, but he failed to produce any documentary evidence to substantiate the allegation.
“Based on the document verification and information gathered during the hearing, the complaint was found to be false and baseless. Accordingly, the ERO has ordered that Muhammad’s name shall continue in the current electoral roll,” collector said. The collector also ordered to file a First Information Report (FIR) against Lokesh.
However, speaking with TNM, Lokesh denied the allegations of his complaint mentioned ‘not an Indian citizen, and said “I have the complaint copy with me. It did not mention ‘not an Indian citizen.' It only mentioned 'permanently shifted,' as I never saw this person in those areas for so long." He said he has all the documents and evidence and as the investigation against him progresses, he will produce it to authorities.
Mohammed said he knew Lokesh Nonda as they both are from the same village. “I recognised he is the complainant when I saw him at the Taluk office. Since we are from the same village, he must know me, and I am a native of this place,” he added.
“Now people ask me when I go for work, why such a complaint was registered, and don’t I have the documents?” he said and added, “The only relief I have is that I have all the documents with me.”
Six false complaints of permanently shifted
Apart from Mohammed, six others were also heard following Lokesh’s complaint that they were absent or had permanently shifted. The six women who received the notice are Asma (64), Safiya (51), Nabeesa (75), Mouziyyathu Sunaifa A (25), Kubrah (35), and Subaida (55). Among these six women, three, Safiya, Subaida, and Kubrah, are married and have lived in the jurisdiction of booth 128 for more than a decade, while the other three were born and raised there.
Zulfikar Ali, a public servant, former Paivalike panchayat member and son of Asama, said, the complainant knows most of the people among these seven. “He lives near my house, and would have seen my mother during the daytime. When we visited ERO, the complainant was not present there,” he added.
Zulfikar also said that as per the ERO, the Lokesh earlier filed written complaints against 91 people. When the ERO asked him to file them online, he allegedly filed only seven. However, Lokesh denied these allegations and said he filed only 71 offline complaints and did not file anything online.
Following this incident, these individuals filed a complaint with the ERO and the collector. Following the complaint, the collector on February 15 informed that an FIR will be filed against Lokesh Nonda.
Since the authorities found that Lokesh deliberately provided false information, it is being treated as a punishable offence under Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950.
BJP and Manjeswaram
AKM Ashraf, an Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader and MLA representing the United Democratic Front (UDF) in the Manjeswaram State Assembly constituency, visited the Taluk office on the day of the hearing. He alleged that there is a nexus between the officials and the BJP that is causing this. “Calling elderly people for hearings and causing them inconvenience is part of their nexus with the BJP. We will initiate a strong struggle against this.” Ashraf said.
Manjeswaram is considered an ‘A-class’ constituency for the BJP in Kerala. The BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) finished as second in the 2021 and 2016 Assembly Elections and in the 2019 bye-election.
In 2021, Ashraf won with a narrow margin of 745 votes against the BJP’s former state president K Surendran. In 2016, Surendran lost to UDF’s PB Abdul Razak with 89 votes.