Identify shifted voters and deceased in Shivajinagar, Shantinagar, Karnataka HC directs election body

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to complete identifying shifted or dead voters in the Shivajinagar and Shantinagar Assembly constituencies.

Justice M Nagaprasanna also directed the ECI to undertake the exercise in accordance with the Representation of People’s Act, rules and the circulars of the commission.

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The court passed the order while disposing of the petitions filed by the BJP's booth-level agents from Shivajinagar and Shantinagar constituencies.

Shivajinagar MLA Rizwan Arshad had filed an application seeking impleadment as well as a separate writ petition.

The petitioners stated that once the fictitious, shifted and dead voters were identified, they have to be deleted from the voters' list as a logical consequence.

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They claimed that the Election Commission had failed to perform its duty in deleting such names from the voters' list of Shivajinagar and Shantinagar. They sought action to delete 26,000 voters in the Shivajinagar constituency and more than 8,000 voters in Shantinagar.

The ECI stated that action was yet to be initiated regarding voters identified as either dead or shifted in Shivajinagar (11,000) and in Shantinagar (8,000).