Steps taken to avoid duplication, no action: BJP candidate on Palakkad double vote issue

Responding to allegations that BJP Palakkad district president KM Haridas has votes in two booths, NDA candidate in Palakkad C Krishnakumar has said that Haridas had filed an application to avoid duplication, but no action was taken.

"Haridas is the District President and has been residing in the Palakkad party office for over a year, making him eligible to transfer his vote to the Palakkad constituency. But P Sarin has only been here for three months and has not faced similar scrutiny. The media should be questioning that first," he said.

Krishnakumar further criticised the district administration for failing to address duplication in voters' list. "During the last Lok Sabha election, we submitted a list of duplicate voters, around 1.68 lakh names, to the District Collector. We requested the Election Commission and the District Collector to address this and even approached the High Court, which ordered action. Yet, the administration has disregarded this directive and has taken no action," he alleged.

The BJP has also claimed that approximately 20,000 fake votes have been added in the Palakkad constituency and accused the CPM of adding fake voters. Meanwhile, the district administration is set to investigate complaints regarding 2,000 alleged fake votes in Palakkad.

Palakkad District Collector Dr S Chitra has sought a report from the Election officials and a meeting has been scheduled for Friday. The Tahasildar, Returning Officers, and Deputy Collector in charge of elections have been instructed to investigate the areas where fake voters were reportedly added to the list.