Andhra government involved in electoral data theft, alleges BJP

New Delhi (IANS) A BJP delegation led by senior party leaders met the Election Commission (EC) officials on Friday and alleged that the Andhra Pradesh government was involved in electoral data theft and had "subverted" all the government processes to gain undue advantage over its political rivals.

The Bharatiya Janata Party team urged the poll panel to take "corrective steps" to nullify the undue advantage taken by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu's Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

"With the active connivance of people in high positions in the Andhra Pradesh government, confidential and secure data of the states' voters and residents have been leaked to the ruling TDP. 

"This large-scale data theft has not only put the people of the state at great risk but has also given undue advantage to the ruling party," the BJP said in a memorandum submitted to the EC.

It alleged that the ruling party has gained illegitimate access to data like Aadhaar numbers and linked bank accounts, photographs of all the voters from the master voter database of the EC and social mapping and political preferences of the voters obtained through government-sponsored surveys.

"The state government has subverted all the government processes to gain undue advantage over its political rivals. Corrective steps must be taken so that the undue advantage gained by the ruling TDP is nullified," the memorandum stated.

The party also alleged that a large number of bogus voters have been added to the electoral rolls with duplicate names and "juggling" of names.

"The complaints to the Chief Electoral Officer of Andhra Pradesh have not yielded much results as the verification exercise through the revenue officials of the state government has been subverted to favour the TDP," the delegation said.

The BJP also sought to make changes in the leadership of the state police force ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

"The Director General of Police (DGP) and a few other high-ranking officers must be sent out of the state during the elections to give confidence to the political parties and the voters that the poll process is free and fair," the party said.

The BJP delegation also raised apprehensions that "bribes" may be directly deposited in the bank accounts of the voters on the eve of the elections.

"We suspect that information regarding bank accounts have been leaked to the private companies working for the ruling party to effect bribe transfers ahead of the elections. This hi-tech 'direct bribe transfer' can completely vitiate the election process and alter the poll dynamics," the BJP said.

The party claimed that to woo voters, the state government has issued post-dated cheques to people under many schemes only to hoodwink them ahead of the polls.

"We appeal to the EC to declare this as a fraudulent practice and make all such actions null and void," the BJP delegation said.