First phase polls goes off smoothly

Many voters find names deleted from electoral rolls

The first phase of polls held in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday passed off peacefully with the state recording between 63 and 65 per cent voter turnout in rural areas and over 50 per cent in urban areas.

Polling was held in 21 Parliamentary constituencies and 147 Assembly segments in the backdrop of serious apprehensions about naxal violence.

The administration's commendable job of conducting a more or less trouble-free election has been seriously marred by the deletion from the electoral rolls of thousands of legitimate voters who held genuine voter identity cards. The issue led to unprecedented protests by the people at several places across the state.

On the reasons for deletion of names of genuine voters from the electoral rolls, state chief electoral officer M Narayana Rao blamed the political parties and voters themselves by saying that the final rolls were published only after giving due scope and time for filing of complaints and objections with regard to deletions and additions.

"We had even placed the rough rolls on the internet for verification by all," he replied though admitting that the issue was regrettable.

Earlier in November 2003, the Election Commission of India had directed the state administration to hold a special drive to eliminate huge number of bogus voters allegedly enrolled by some political parties.

Now it is feared that the administration actually deleted the names several genuine voters instead of bogus voters.

Under the special drive about 96 lakh names were deleted from the electoral rolls. Earlier in the day, complaints about non functioning and malfunctioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs) were reported from several places in the state.

Voters in a polling station in Sadasivapet under Medak constituency complained that the EVM was registering all the votes polled to the BJP even though they were casting votes in favour of other parties.

Under the pressure of voters the authorities have seized that EVM and conducted polling with another EVM. A similar complaint has come from a village under Husnabad constituency in Warangal district.

Though EVMs were used for the first time in most of the parts in the state, a majority of the voters have not complained about any difficulty or confusion in casting their vote on the machines except some older people who took the help of the polling staff.

Ajay Sahni, joint chief electoral officer has ruled out any malfunction saying that the engineers from ECIL, the manufacturers of the EVM, had gone into all these complaints.

Sahni said that due to the instances of damage to EVMs there was a likelihood of ordering repolls in about eight polling stations across the state.

Polling has started on a dull note in the first two hours with only seven to 10 per cent of voter turnout under several Assembly constituencies in Hyderabad city. Later it went up to 30 per cent by 1 pm.

The districts of north coastal Andhra registered a higher voter turnout recording over 50 per cent polling by 3 pm, while the Telangana region recorded around 40 per cent voter turnout.