Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation, a city based organisation has alleged that despite the order of the Election Commission of India, the unusual increase in the number of voters in Uttarakhand has not been properly investigated yet. Notably, on the basis of the SDC Foundation’s report on the matter, the Election Commission of India ordered the Uttarakhand State Election Commission in January to conduct an inquiry into the unusual increase in the number of voters in the State over the last 10 years from 2012 to 2022.
The founder of SDC Foundation, Anoop Nautiyal said that strangely the investigations conducted on this matter did not find any irregularity in the unusual increase in the number of voters. “It is still murky as to how the voter count increased so rapidly and how 83 lakh voters were screened so quickly at more than 11,000 polling booths in 70 Assembly seats in the State,” he said, adding that SDC Foundation has written to the Election Commission of India, demanding all aspects of the increase in the number of voters be re-examined in a transparent and serious manner.
It is worth mentioning here that the SDC Foundation had released different reports regarding the electoral statistics during last year’s Assembly elections. One of these reports was called 'Demographic Changes, District Updates and Constituency Numbers'. It was said in this report that there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of voters in the State in the last decade from 2012 to 2022 whereas in the previous decade from 2002 to 2012, the State's voter turnout had increased by 20 percent.
Nautiyal said that the report had revealed an unprecedented increase in the number of voters in the Assembly constituencies in the plain areas during the period of 2012-2022. “In Dehradun's Dharampur Assembly seat, the number of voters increased by 72 percent during this period,” he said.
He contrasted this increase with the increase in the number of voters in four states- Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur and Goa- where Assembly elections were held in 2022 along with Uttarakhand. “Compared to a 30 per cent increase in the number of voters in Uttarakhand from 2012 to 2022, there was an increase of 21 per cent in Punjab, 19 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, 14 per cent in Manipur and 13 per cent in Goa,” he said.
Terming the situation as worrisome, Nautiyal said that the huge increase in the number of voters in Uttarakhand would not just change the cultural character of the State but will worsen things in the cities which are already creaking from encroachment, concretisation, reduced greenery, increasing pollution and overall unplanned development.
He demanded the State Election Commission to provide the names, addresses and phone numbers of all members of the committees formed to investigate the matter so that independent feedback could be collected by their organisation.
