Amidst the political chaos of voter names being deleted by the YSRCP, shortly after the election dates were announced, Andhra Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Gopal Krishna Dwivedi on Sunday clarified that there will be no deletion of voters until elections as the model code of conduct had come into place.
Speaking to reporters, Dwivedi said that they received a total of 9.27,542 Form-7 applications requesting deletion of voters, and after verifying 7,24,914 applications, they rejected 5,25,927 applications. He added that he had already written to the Election Commission of India to finish the verification process and mark genuine applications in the voter list as absent, shifted or dead on the polling day.
The CEO further said that the names of those missing from electoral rolls could apply as voters by applying on Form 6 by March 15. The CEO said that they have to process the eligible voters and enlist them before March 25.
According to the CEO, AP has an electorate of 3,82,31,026 among which 1,35,102 are newly enrolled.
Alleging that the TDP had been creating 'bogus voters', the YSRCP has been filing Form-7s requesting their deletion en masse. They have also approached the Election Commission of India claiming that Andhra Pradesh has 59 lakh bogus voters. However, the CEO had told TNM that the number of 'duplicate' voters was just 5%.
In Andhra, the Assembly polls and Lok Sabha polls will be held simultaneously.
Elections to the 175 Assembly seats and 25 Lok Sabha seats in Andhra Pradesh, which will see a single-phase election, will be held on April 11. Results to the Assembly and Lok Sabha Elections will be announced on May 23, with the counting of votes taking place on the same day.
According to the notification, the date of issue of the gazette notification is March 18, 2019. The last day of nomination for Assembly and Lok Sabha Elections is March 25 and the last date of withdrawing nominations for both assembly and Lok Sabha is March 28.
Andhra Pradesh will see a multi-cornered fight. The ruling TDP led by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu will square off against Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSRCP. Also in the fray are the Congress, Pawan Kalyan’s Jana Sena, which has tied up with Left parties, and the BJP.
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