AAP, Cong seek fixing of responsibility

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 6

While alleging that the SAD-BJP government was behind making fake votes for benefitting their candidates in the past, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have urged the Election Commission to take action against the electoral staff, which was involved in making votes.

Both the parties had demanded that the commission should take suitable measures following the deletion of over 1 lakh votes from the voters list during the revision of electoral rolls recently.

Gurjit Singh Aujla, president, District Congress Committee (rural), alleged that during the 2012 Assembly elections many Congress candidates faced defeat only due to fake votes polled. Going by data of votes deleted in every Assembly constituency, it was found that six had over 10,000 fake votes with Central constituency topping the list. It was followed by North, West, South and East constituencies. Ajnala, Rajasansi, Majitha, Jandiala, Attari and Baba Bakala also had thousands of fake votes, which were deleted now.

“It’s quite evident from the latest deletion of 1,07,974 fake votes by the Election Commission that the SAD-BJP combine violated the electoral system beyond imagination and the Congress lost the 2012 elections because of these fake votes,” said Aujla.

He claimed that these fake votes had a huge effect during the previous Lok Sabha elections in the holy city. Aujla demanded that the Elections Commission should reach the root of the issue and register criminal cases against the staff, who forged these votes and also the beneficiaries of these fake votes.

Ravinder Sultanwind, in charge, RTI wing of AAP, said, “It is appreciating that the Election Commission has deleted the fake votes, it should also fix the responsibility of officials, whose negligence or connivance led to the creation of fake voters.”

He said Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer should also clarify to which part these fake voters belonged. Sultanwind said instead of increasing, the number of voters had decreased. He urged the DC to probe the issue impartially and take stern action against those, who forged these votes.