More than 170 fake names have been identified in the Lok Sabha electoral roll of a ward in Udumbanchola, a small town in Kerala’s Idukki district. The State goes to the polls on April 26 and the disclosure has shocked all political parties barring the CPI (M). The 170 names identified in the electoral roll of Udumbanchola are those whose names figure in the electoral roll of Theni in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
MV Govindan, the CPI (M) State secretary, said there was nothing unusual in the duplication of names in electoral rolls. “The persons whose names figure in Udumbanchola roll are all plantation workers employed in rubber and tea estates in Idukki. They are all from Tamil Nadu’s Theni district and there is nothing to worry about it,” said Govindan.
Kerala goes to the poll for 26th April while election in Tamil Nadu is scheduled for 19th April. But more than the issue of 170 voters in Udumbanchola, what haunts the major Opposition parties in Kerala is the propensity of the CPI (M) and the CPI to manipulate and tinker with electoral rolls.The “impressive win” scored by the CPI (M) led LDF in the 2021 Assembly Election is still fresh in the minds of the people. The 2021 win in which the CPI (M) retained power in Kerala is likely to have shocked the Narendra Modi led Central Government.
The 2019 Lok Sabha Poll from Kerala saw the Congress-led UDF sweeping the election by winning 19 out of the 20 seats from the State. The Congress candidate lost the Alappuzha constituency by 10,000 votes to the CPI (M) AM Ariff, an orthodox Islamist and that too in a three-cornered contest.
Public resentment against the CPI (M) was at its peak because of issues like the lathi charge and attacks against pilgrims to the Holy Shrine of Lord Ayyappa and also the big time scams like gold smuggling and corruption, the epicenter of which was the Chief Minister’s Office, according to Prime Minister Modi himself.
The 2019 Lok Sabha poll results showed that 2.04 crore voters cast their votes in the election, which means there was a turn out of 77.8 per cent. The Congress-led UDF recorded 96.29 lakh votes while the CPI (M)-led LDF had to content with 71.56 lakh votes. The question that remains unanswered is how the total number of electors in 2019 increased from 2.04 crore to 2.75 crore within a span of less than two months.
But what happened in the 2021 Assembly election remains a big mystery. More than 2.75 crore voters cast their votes (75.6 per cent of the total voters). The LDF polled more than one crore votes (1 crore 5 lakh votes) while the UDF was relegated to the second position with 81 lakh votes. This means that while the CPI(M)-led front polled 45.43 per cent votes, the Congress and its partners had to remain content with 39.47 per cent votes.
VD Satheeshan, Leader of the Opposition, said after the results were announced that there were anomalies and abnormalities in the 2021 Assembly election and he would take it up with the Election Commission of India. “Situation in Kerala remained the same between 2019 and 2021 with massive corruption and nepotism by CPI (M) leadership. Though a section of the CPI(M) leadership claims that the free ration kit bags issued by the LDF Government turned the tide in favour of the party, this reasoning is far off the mark,” said Mohammed Shiyaz, senior Congress leader. Told The Pioneer,
The CPI(M) had allowed “guest workers”, (party tag for migrant and illegal labors from north east and Bangladesh) to cast their votes. All these workers had landed in Kerala with fake aadhar cards and identity cards issued by the Government of West Bengal, according to Kurian Abraham, a Congress leader from Pambadi.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is spearheading the campaign against CAA has declared from all platforms that the State would not allow the legislation in Kerala. It is for the ECI to probe and identify the illegal voters in the rolls,” said a former police chief of Kerala.
