Hyderabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Nizamabad MP Arvind Dharmapuri, in a letter to the Chief Election Officer (CEO), on Friday, September 15, alleged that hundreds of voters from Maharashtra are being registered in the booths belonging to minorities in the Bodhan constituency.
In his complaint, Dharmapuri alleged that approximately 4024 new voter applications have been received at eight polling stations, between July 20 to September 5, a majority of whom are Muslims from Maharashtra.
“Authorities have detected fake applications for voter registration, a few were found to be with the address of public toilets,” he stated in the letter. “There are several such fake applications.”
Shakil Aamir Mohammed of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), won the Bodhan seat in 2019 after defeating Sudarshan Reddy Podduturi of the Congress.
The Bodhan constituency has so far received about 11,402 applications for enrollment of voters. “Majority of the said applications are from the Muslim community and are fake ones,” alleged Dharmapuri.
“It has come to our knowledge that Muslims of the neighbouring state of Maharashtra are being brought to Bodhan and were enrolled, already they were shown in the draft list,” he further alleged in his complaint.
A representation over the same had been made earlier and a Revenue Division Officer/Electrol Registration Officer had been appointed to look into it.
But Dharmapuri has demanded that a special officer, to head the new voter’s registration of Bodhan constituency, be appointed in the case as “the constituency is represented by the MLA of the present government” stating that it would ensure “transparency and effectiveness”.
Dharmapuri also alleged that EROs’ are unable to conduct door-to-door surveys despite requests owing to the pressure of the current MLA.
“We have requested the ERO to conduct door-to-door verification to delete the fake voters from the draft list, but the Booth Level Officers are under the pressure of the present MLA, they are not able to delete such fake voters,” he added.
