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A Thrissur court has asked the police to submit a report on allegations that Suresh Gopi, actor and BJP’s Member of Parliament (MP) from Thrissur, along with members of his family, illegally registered themselves as voters in Thrissur ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The direction came from the Thrissur District First Class Magistrate Court–3 on a private complaint filed by Congress leader and former MP TN Prathapan, who has alleged irregularities in the addition of names to the voters’ list.
In his complaint, filed on September 10, Prathapan alleged that Suresh Gopi, his brother Subhash Gopi, and their families — allegedly with the assistance of a Booth Level Officer (BLO) — enrolled themselves as voters in Thrissur despite residing in Thiruvananthapuram. He further alleged that the family cast their votes in booth number 115 in the constituency using “false documents and affidavits.”
Suresh Gopi won the 2024 election from Thrissur with 4,12,338 votes (37.8% of the vote share), defeating CPI leader VS Sunilkumar by 74,686 votes. His victory also marked a 9.16 percentage point increase in the NDA’s vote share in the constituency.
Allegations in the complaint
The complaint alleges that Suresh Gopi, his brother, and their families permanently reside in Sasthamangalam in Thiruvananthapuram district, and that their names are still present on the voters’ list there, despite being also registered at Thrissur’s Mukkattukara booth. “Even after Suresh Gopi contested and won the election, the names were not removed from the list in Sasthamangalam booth in the Thiruvananthapuram North East constituency,” the complaint says. It names the Mukkattukara BLO for booth 115, Vanaja, alleging that she failed to verify the documents submitted.
According to the complaint, the family allegedly claimed residence at ‘Bharat Heritage’ in Mukkattukara by “making false documents and submitting false affidavits,” to add their names to the voters’ list at booth 115, where they were listed from serial numbers 1218 to 1228.
The complaint further alleges that Subhash Gopi and his wife hold two voter IDs each and are listed in multiple booths across three districts of Kerala. It states that Subhash is registered in the Mundayakkal booth in Eravipuram, Kollam, as well as in Mukkattukara, Thrissur. His name, the complaint says, also appears on the voters’ lists of Kollam Corporation, the Sasthamangalam division in Thiruvananthapuram Corporation, the Eravipuram Assembly constituency, and the Thrissur Assembly constituency.
The complaint also names Suresh Gopi’s wife, Radhika Suresh; their children Gokul S Nair, Bhagya Nair, Madhav Suresh, and S Bhavani; as well as Subhash’s wife, Rani Subhash, and their children Kesav and S Kalyani. It states that all of them are residents of Thiruvananthapuram and have never lived in Thrissur, yet were added to the Thrissur voters’ list through allegedly falsified documents and affidavits submitted with Form 6, the application for enrolling a new voter.
Previous complaints and inaction
Prathapan stated in his complaint that he had earlier raised these concerns with the district collector, who also serves as District Election Officer, and later lodged complaints with Mannuthy police and the Thrissur City Police Commissioner in August 2025. However, no action was taken, leading him to move the court.
The complaint also notes that both the UDF and LDF had previously raised concerns about voter roll manipulation in Thrissur, submitting representations to the Election Commission of India before and after the election, though no follow-up action was reported.