Bharatiya Janata Party State unit president Somu Veerraju on Friday alleged that the YSR Congress Party was all out to rig the June 23 byelection to the Atmakur Assembly seat.
Speaking to reporters after submittting a memorandum to Joint Collector of Nellore district and Returning Officer for the byelection M.N. Harendhira Prasad, he said the village and ward volunteers were being misused to create fake Elector Photo Identity Cards (EPICs) on the names of people who had migrated from the constituency limits to elsewhere. The ruling party is also planning to pull in voters from outside the constituency in a big way to cast their votes for the byelection, Mr. Veerraju alleged.
The ruling party had resorted to the same modus operandi during the byelection to the Tirupati Lok Sabha seat as well as the Budvel Assembly seat in the past and had brought a large number of people from outside the constituencies by various modes of transport to cast bogus votes, he charged.
He said the party was fully geared up to stop the ruling YSRCP’s ‘dubious tactics’ to ensure victory in the byelection, which was necessitated by the death of Information Technology Minister Mekapati Goutham Reddy.
He urged the Returning Officer not to allow Ministers and ruling party MLAs to stay in the constituency, alleging that they would adversely influence the polling process. The BJP submitted a list of 104 sensitive polling stations in Sangam, Marripadu and Anantasagaram mandals in Atmakur Assembly constituency where it feared that the YSRCP might resort to electoral malpractices in a big way, and sought the Returning Officer's intervention to ensure a free and fair byelection.
