DMK submits list of deceased to be deleted from rolls

VELLORE: A rarity in electoral politics, ruling DMK’s Vellore district president Mohammed Saqhy accompanied by the party’s Vellore MLA P Karthikeyan handed over to Collector P Kumaravel Pandian a list containing names of deceased whose names were yet to be removed from the draft voters list on Tuesday.

This move by the DMK has irked AIADMK cadre as the ruling party stole a march over the opposition in the district.

Vellore district has five Assembly constituencies of Vellore, Katpadi, Anaicut, Gudiyattam and KV Kuppam. The draft rolls have a total of 12, 57, 316 voters, including 27,109 dead voters. The duo from DMK handed over a petition to the Collector stating that it was distressing that the names of the dead continued to be reflected in the draft electoral rolls despite many petitions on this issue being submitted to the district administration.

This move has come as a shocker for the AIADMK, which has been assiduously forming booth committees in view of the ensuing Parliamentary polls. “As the opposition party it should have been AIADMK which should undertaken this task,” said a senior party functionary seeking anonymity.

“When the news came out, we were being questioned why we failed to undertake this basic task,” he said and added that it was a reflection on the fact that the booth committees were yet to understand or take seriously their task of ensuring that only bona fide voters were in the list.

Similarly, it was also pointed out that the AIADMK party men did not utilise the special camps conducted by the district administration to add, delete names or change addresses. “If this had been done then the party would have earned a name, but this issue also escaped us like the late help give to flood-hit,” party sources rued.