Police register FIRs against bogus voters

Delhi police register FIRs against bogus voters after the election officials raise doubts over the authenticity of 10 lakh new applications.

Delhi police have registered 100 FIRs against bogus voters following complaints by election officials who had raised doubts over the authenticity of 10 lakh applications, filed in the last three weeks, seeking inclusion of additional names in the electoral rolls.

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Election officials became suspicious of about 25 per cent of the 40 lakhs additional names added during a month-long door-to-door verification as part of the electoral roll preparation in sync with new Assembly constituencies being re-drawn after the delimitation order.

"The roll reviewed in March had 1.2 crore people listed. Another 40 lakhs were added.

"But when we began to investigate, we found that around 10 lakhs applications were incomplete and did not have requisite documents," Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Satbir Silas Bedi said.

Police have registered as many as 100 FIRs against the bogus voters, she said.

Bedi did not rule out filing criminal cases against more such "fraud" voters as the investigation progressed.

"It was impossible that we missed out on 10 lakh voters. This raised doubts in our mind and hence the investigation," Bedi said.

The overall verification process is still on, with area booth level officers carrying out the door-to-door verifications process. The officers will tabulate the data by July 31.

"A draft electoral list will be published on August 1," Bedi added.