In a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Election Commission of India (ECI), Delhi, several political activists, including Magsaysay award winner Sandeep Pandey, have objected to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Telengana, offering Form 6 for deleted voters, which they say is “meant for new voters that has self-declaration clause under s.132 of Representative of People’s Act (RPA), invoking punishment if already has been in the voter list at least once.
According to them, “We have been asking for segregated list of deleted re-registered vis-a-vis first time new voters”, yet the demand has “not been heeded”, adding, “We have been asking for restoration of unauthorized deleted voters and not for fresh registration as new voter in Form 6. But this was overlooked.”
Signed by Pandey, Lubna Sarwath, who contested the Telengana assembly elections this year, Chakri S, and Guru Moorthy all belonging to the Socialist Party (India), the letter to the CEC says, there is a “hidden danger for the re-registering voter who is calling for state to prosecute oneself due to false declaration which the re-registering voter is dragged into.”
Pointing out that the “heading of form 6 itself is for new voters or for shifting purpose but not for those who had/have a voter ID and find themselves being unauthorizedly deleted”, they say, now they are being “coerced into filling the new voter form that consists a self-declaration inviting the state to prosecute if filling the Form 6 in spite of having been already a registered voter before.”
Seeking a separate form “with a clear heading for deleted voters who have been advised officially by CEO/ECI to re-register themselves”, the letter states, the ECI should “declare official security and indemnity for all the deleted voters who had been thus far been coerced and misled into filling Form 6”. It wonders why is CEO, Telengana, committing illegalities such as unauthorized deletions of voters of citizens of India and then can further mislead, misguide and coerce innocent citizens into an untruthful self-declaration that implicates self into offences punishable both under Representation of people Act 1951 as well as Indian Penal Code.”
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