MP poll roll mess: Over 1,200 voters in one house

In Manegawa in Rewa, where the sitting MLA is Speaker Sriniwas Tewari, an inquiry was ordered into a specific charge that 1,237 persons had been shown residing in a single house. It was found that the official concerned never visited the house and the numbers were a gross exaggeration.

In New Delhi today, angry BJP MLAs and MPs from the state marched to the Rashtrapati Bhawan, petitioning President A P J Abdul Kalam to direct the MP government to follow the EC directive.

The delegation included party general secretary Pramod Mahajan, state election campaign committee chief Uma Bharati and MP unit president Kailash Joshi. Uma Bharti called the irregularities the ‘‘biggest fraud on democracy’’ and said thousands of bogus voters had been included.

Investigations so far have revealed shocking irregularities in the rolls for the districts of Rewa, Khargone and Shahdol, comprising 19 constituencies, where action has been recommended against the then district collectors.

In Khargone — the Kasravad seat is represented by Deputy CM Subhash Yadav — 54,000 new names were left out from the final list while 42,000 names meant for deletion were retained. In Rewa, 42,000 names have not been added while 8,000 have not been deleted and in Shahdol, 42,000 names meant were deletion are still there.

Chief Minister Digvijay Singh told The Indian Express that his government had sought an appointment with the EC next Monday. ‘‘We will be sending factual information in letter form about what the state government feels. At the same time, we have made it clear that there’s no question of a confrontation with the EC and we will go to any extent to ensure free and fair elections. We will take up the case and do what the EC says.

‘‘The BJP is making this out to be a political scam but this is not borne by facts. If this was so, BJP voters would have been cut off from the master list. This has not been reflected except in a few areas in Rewa. There may have been delays in printing or some errors in this massive task involving 8 to 9 lakh names.

‘‘In case of Shahdol, the list was cross-checked twice but the corrected list was not printed by the printers who are selected by the EC. In Khargone, the correction made for a second time was not made and the list was returned on the midnight of January 18. It had to reach each polling booth by January 20 morning, so it was not cross-checked. In Rewa, the manuscript was never returned by the printer. There was no intention to defraud and the printers were selected by the EC,’’ Singh said.

But sources said the process of finalising the list, once the house-to-house survey was complete, took over a month. During this period, the list passed back and forth between district collectors and printers not once but thrice. Each draft was finalised after scrutiny by the district collectors.

The printed draft list in these districts was released on January 20 after it had been submitted to the district collectors for a final look on January 18. While the officials are now reportedly taking the plea that the time available was too short, even a cursory or random scrutiny of the list over these two days would have revealed large-scale discrepancies.

Once the draft list was published, the BJP took up the matter and the EC stayed the process of revision of the rolls and ordered an investigation on February 3. The investigation was to be completed in 15 days and the state electoral office forwarded the results of the investigation to the EC after a detailed check of each name on the list.

(with additional reporting by Pradeep Kaushal in New Delhi)