The Telangana High Court on Thursday refused to grant a stay on publishing the final voters’ list in Munugode Assembly constituency, where polling for the by-elections is scheduled on November 3.
The court asked the Election Commission of India (ECI) to submit a report along with the final list of voters and the additions and deletions in the list since 2019.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice CV Bhaskar Reddy adjourned to Friday the hearing on the petition filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleging irregularities in registration of new voters in the constituency.
The BJP has also sought a direction to the Election Commission to freeze the voters list prepared till July 31.
BJP secretary G. Premender Reddy, who filed the petition, alleged discrepancies in revision of voter list.
The petitioner requested the court not to permit the proposed declaration of the final voters list of Munugode constituency on Friday.
The court, however, refused to pass the order, saying addition, deletion, corrections to the voters list is an ongoing process.
It, however, asked the ECI to place details of all fresh voters who have registered in the last two months.
Appearing on behalf of the petitioner, Rachana Reddy submitted to the court that there are apprehensions about possible fake voters in the new list as nearly 25,000 voters were included in August and September.
ECI’s counsel Avinash Desai argued that the new voter enrollment was undertaken in a transparent manner. He informed the court that there were 2.22 lakh voters in the constituency till January 2021 and since then 25,000 voters were added and 7,000 were deleted. The court was told that the constituency now has 2.38 lakh voters.
Meanwhile, a delegation of BJP leaders met the ECI officials in Delhi and lodged a complaint about 25,000 alleged fake voters in Munugode.
The delegation led by BJP general secretary in-charge of Telangana Tarun Chug demanded action by the ECI on fake voters and misuse of official machinery by the KCR government.
The delegation included Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan and former union minister of state Pratap Chandra Sarangi.
