Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday told the Election Commission of India (ECI) that the YSCRP-ruled Andhra Pradesh government was exercising political pressure in the process of revising the electoral roll in the state. Soon after, YSRCP Rajya Sabha MP V Vijaisai Reddy, too, met the ECI and said the TDP was making baseless allegations. Speaking to the media after meeting the ECI, Reddy said he had told the ECI about “bogus entries” made to the electoral roll during the tenure of the Chandrababu Naidu government. He asked the ECI to remove all bogus entries from the rolls. In his memorandum to the ECI, Naidu alleged that voters had been struck off the rolls in many areas without following due process and a system of “volunteers” of YSRCP cadre had been created to “carry out political work”. He alleged that these volunteers were collecting data of voters and their Aadhaar numbers for the ruling party. He urged the ECI to ensure that all eligible voters are included in the electoral roll and all dead and “fake” electors are removed. He also urged the the ECI to review all deletions in the past two revision cycles and to make sure the volunteers are not allowed to do any election-related work. The two parties have approached the ECI at a time when the electoral rolls are being revised ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh elections.
