Congress leaders Shafi Parambil and Varkala Kahar have approached the Kerala High Court with petitions for deploying Central forces in the Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency and preventing the voters in the Attingal constituency who have been enlisted twice on the voters list from voting in more than one booth respectively.
K. Praveenkumar, Chief Election Agent of Mr. Parambil, the UDF candidate in Vadakara, sought the deployment of Central forces in all the booths and video recording of the polling process in full as he apprehended that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] cadres would attack voters and rival party workers on the polling day. He alleged that the CPI(M) cadres used to cast bogus votes of the dead and those who were abroad or working elsewhere. The polling and police officers would aid the CPI(M) cadres to cast bogus votes. Majority of the polling booths were either sensitive or hyper sensitive and hence the polling process had to be videographed in full, he contended.
He apprehended that the police officers owing allegiance to the CPI(M) would not take effective action and hence Central forces should be deployed in all booths to ensure a free and fair election. He had also mentioned about the recent bomb blast in Panoor in his petition.
Double entries
In a separate petition, Mr. Kahar, the chief election agent of UDF candidate Adoor Prakash in the Attingal constituency, sought to challenge the reported double entries on the voters’ list. He sought a directive to the Election Commission to ensure that voters listed twice were not allowed to cast their votes in more than one place. He alleged that there were 13,93,134 voters on the final voters’ list prepared for the constituency. Despite complaints, 1,61,237 double entries remained on the list.
He sought a directive to the Election Commission to identify double entries using software and apps of the commission to ensure that such voters were not allowed to cast their votes in more than one booth.
