HYDERABAD: Dealing with various doubts over the massive enrolment of new voters in the bypoll-bound Munugode Assembly constituency, a division bench of Telangana High Court said that it had not found any ‘abnormality’ in the voters list provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
After reviewing the statement of the Chief Election Officer, a bench comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice C.V. Bhaskar Reddy affirmed that the total voters in Munugode as of October 12, 2018, were 2,14,847, and it had risen to 2,38,759 as of October 11, 2022.
The Chief Justice contended that the increase was not unusual. However, the court instructed ECI to provide the final voters list by October 21.
The bench was dealing with a petition filed by Gujjala Venkata Krishna Reddy, BJP state general secretary, seeking a direction to the State Election Commission not to declare the voters list as they had doubts of the ruling party’s hand in the enrolment of 25,000 new voters in 70 days.
According to the CEO’s statement, they received 25,013 Form 6 applications, of which 7,247 were rejected. As of October 11, 5,517 applications are pending. With regard to Form 8 applications, 2,142 were received of which 1,813 were rejected and 182 were waiting.
Counsel B. Rachana Reddy appearing for the petitioner said the authorities were not adhering to the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
To this, the CJ asked: “What order do you want? Do you wish to put the elections on hold or freeze the voter list? Those individuals are not before us; you are requesting that they be removed from the voter list; we cannot do so; your statement has been recorded, and the writ petition is still ongoing. If you win by a large margin, that may be the end; if you lose by a little margin, we will look into it.”
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