Take action against officials adding fake voters: Left

The Left parties today asked the Election Commission to take action against the officials responsible for "inclusion of fictitious names" in voters lists in West Bengal.

The Left parties on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to take action against the officials responsible for "inclusion of fictitious names" in voters lists in West Bengal.

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A delegation of Left MPs led by Communist Party of India Marxist (CPI M) leader Sitaram Yechury met the Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi and submitted a memorandum.

"Because of the delay and large scale mistakes in printing photo identity cards, some interested quarters are flouting the Election Commission's rules illegally by attaching affidavits in Form 6 for the inclusion of fictitious names in voters' lists," the memorandum said.

Referring to an earlier memorandum submitted to the state's chief electoral officer (CEO) July 10, the Left leaders said, "The chief electoral officer assured the delegation that block level officers (BLOs) cannot accept those affidavits and will be prevented from enlisting fictitious names in the voters' lists."

"The CEO assured the delegation that necessary instructions will be sent and steps would be urgently taken. But there was no instruction given from the chief electoral officer with regard to affidavits," it said, seeking the poll panel cancel these "illegal affidavits and take steps against the electoral officials who accepted those affidavits and initiate legal action against the parties who are resorting to such fraudulent inclusion of fictitious voters directly or indirectly".

"Necessary steps need to be taken against such activities in the legal proceedings, so that no names could be included without proper enquiries at the time of hearings," it added.

Basudeb Acharia (CPI M), Prabodh Panda (Communist Party of India), Narahari Mahato (Forward Bloc) and Prasanta Majumdar (Revolutionary Socialist Party) were also part of the delegation.