Chandrapur (Maharashtra), September 19 (IANS) The office of Election Registration Officer (ERO) in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra has clarified on Friday that due to hard work and action by the state administration, the efforts of bogus voter registration in Rajura Assembly were successfully stopped.
“During the period from 1 October to 17, 2024, a total of 7,592 applications were received for new voter registration. In the appointed time, no entry was made in the election rolls,” the office of Chandrapur Election Registration Officer said in a statement.
The statement said, “Giving serious attention to the matter, the District Election Officer directed the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) and the Rajura Sub-Division Officer to conduct a thorough investigation into all the applications and initiate the necessary criminal proceedings under the provisions of representation of the People’s Act, 1950 and Information Technology Act, 2000.”
As a result, an FIR has been lodged at Rajura Police Station and further investigation is being done by the police department, the statement said.
“The ERO office has reiterated that due to timely vigilance, 6,861 fake applications were rejected and thus prevented from entering the electoral rolls of the 70-Rajura assembly constituency. The action was made suo motu without any complaint,” said this.
The statement of the office of the Election Registration Officer comes in view of the allegations of the opposition (LOP) Rahul Gandhi regarding the voter list irregularities in Rajura assembly constituency.
Rahul Gandhi alleged that 6,850 “fake online additions” were done in Rajura assembly constituency of Chandrapur district.
Rajura is one of the six assembly seats in Chandrapur Lok Sabha constituency.
Congress candidate Pratibha Dhankor won 2,60,000 votes from Chandrapur seat, and on the seat of Rajura assembly alone, the Congress lead was 58,349 votes.
However, in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections, only six months later, Darao Bhongle of BJP defeated Congress candidate Subhash Dhote by 3,054 votes.
Dhote said that he must have won elections with more than 3,000 votes for the third time.
“When I filed a formal complaint about the entries of fraud with the Election Commission (EC), they removed them all,” he said.
He said, “The Tehsildar also filed an FIR in the case. However, the EC is not sharing the details of the people involved in the scam,” he said.
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