Complaint on duplicate voters in MP incorrect: EC

The Election Commission (EC) has told the Supreme Court that complaints made by the Congress party about the 60-lakh duplicate voters in Madhya Pradesh, were not substantiated as a large number of entries were extrapolated.

“The complaint is based on limited parameter of common name, religion and gender. The parameters of age and photo have not been included. The use of limited parameters threw large number of entries which cannot be categorised as demographically similar entries,” it said in an affidavit.

The poll panel said that it was informed that the multiple, similar and duplicate entries as mentioned by the AICC is extrapolated.

The absence of surnames along with the names also contributed in increasing the number of probable duplicate entries, it added.

The EC maintained before the court that the efforts were already under process to make the electoral roll error-free.

“In view of the reports of the extensive door-to-door field verification, the allegations of large-scale duplicate, repeat, invalid and false electors in the electoral roll are not substantiated," it said.

On Friday, a bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, however, asked a counsel, representing the poll panel, to explain if it was possible for it to provide the electoral roll in word format to the petitioner, senior Congress leader Kamal Nath.

Senior advocate Abhishek N Singhvi, representing the petitioner, contended that the Commission provided them the voters list in PDF format, instead of word format. He said, in Rajasthan, the Commission had provided them the list in PDF format.

The EC counsel, however, submitted that the file of word format can be changed easily and the complaint of 60 lakh duplicate voters may turn out to be 120 lakh.

The court put the petition by Kamal Nath for consideration on September 10.

The Congress leader has sought random verification of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines in the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections.