Three poll officers get notice for ‘lapses’ in MP bypoll voter lists

The above lapse was discovered after Congress leaders flagged anomalies in the two electoral rolls a week ahead of the bypolls.

“In Kolaras, roughly 28,000 entries were alleged to be incorrect and 18,000 for Mungaoli. Out of these 1,500 in case of Mugaoli and roughly 12,000 in case of Kolaras were, indeed, found to be names of dead, shifted and duplicate voter names,” said a senior EC official.

Read | Congress says bogus voters in Madhya Pradesh, Election Commission orders probe

Since the Mungaoli and Kolaras audit, the EC is learnt to have deleted names of another 10 lakh dead, shifted and duplicate voters from the state’s electoral roll.

On Sunday, the Commission dispatched teams to four Assembly seats (Narela, Bhojpur, Hoshangabad and Seoni-Malwa) in the state after the Congress made fresh allegations of irregularities in the voter list.

The four teams have been tasked to inquire into the specific issues raised by the Congress and find out how the alleged errors, if any, have crept into the voter list.

According to EC sources, once the four teams report back with their findings then the Commission will prepare a template for all poll officers of the state, based on which they will be directed to purify the electoral rolls. The EC has to publish Madhya Pradesh’s draft electoral roll by June 21. The state goes to polls later this year.