E-Paper
Over 40 mn eligible to cast votes in Andhra
The state assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh is scheduled to be held in April this year
Over 40.80 million voters are eligible to cast their votes in the upcoming elections to the state assembly and Lok Sabha in Andhra Pradesh, scheduled to be held in April this year, people familiar with the matter said.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Monday released the integrated final electoral roll of the special summary revision, 2024 in New Delhi. The final published electoral roll had reference to January 1, 2024 as the qualifying date.
The constituency-wise lists of voters were uploaded on the website of the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Andhra Pradesh in the evening.
According to an official in the office of the CEO, the total number of voters include a little more than 20 million men and 20.73 million women. There are as many as 3,482 voters belonging to the third gender, besides, 67,434 service voters.
The draft electoral rolls released by the ECI on October 27 came in for sharp criticism from the political parties.
There had been a large number of complaints from the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Jana Sena Party (JSP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over a large scale manipulation of voters’ list by the ruling Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress party (YSRCP) with the help of village/ward volunteers.
TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu and JSP chief Pawan Kalyan met chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar on January 9 and submitted a common representation seeking to rectify the irregularities. Naidu alleged that in the Chandragiri assembly segment in Chittoor district alone, more than 115,000 bogus voters were registered, while the votes of genuine voters who went to other places in search of employment have been deleted.
The YSRCP too suggested that the ECI conduct elections for the upcoming general elections in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in a single phase on the same day so as to avoid double voting by some sections of people.
YSRCP general secretary V Vijay Sai Reddy alleged that the CEO was accepting bogus complaints from TDP, the YSRCP leader asked the EC to give instructions not to entertain the TDP complaints.
On January 17, ECI ordered suspension of senior IAS officer P S Girisha, presently collector and district magistrate of Annamayya district of Andhra Pradesh, for the alleged malpractices during the by-election to Tirupati Lok Sabha seat held on April 17, 2021.
The IAS officer was the commissioner of the Tirupati municipal corporation and returning officer for the by-election to the Tirupati Lok Sabha seat, when the alleged irregularities took place during the polling. The ECI had ordered a detailed inquiry into a complaint filed by BJP stating that more than 35,000 bogus electoral photo identity cards (EPICs) were supplied to people to impersonate as genuine voters during the polling.
Soon after the publication of the final electoral list on Monday, the state government began the exercise for making arrangements for the elections. Chief secretary K S Jawahar Reddy held a meeting with CEO Mukesh Kumar Meena and other officials to discuss these arrangements.
An official note from the state secretariat said the chief secretary directed the authorities of various departments to transfer all the officials and employees who have been working at a single place for more than three years, if they have connection with the electoral process. The transfers will be completed in the next three days.
The chief secretary also reviewed the arrangements to be provided at the polling stations, besides shifting of employees and filling up of vacancies at the district level.
The chief secretary also discussed with the police officers on the need to curb flow of money in the districts to woo the voters.
