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AIADMK member produces
voter ID card in CM's name

The voter identity card programme, a pet project of the Election Commission since the days of T N Seshan at the helm, received a jolt in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday with AIADMK legislator P R Sundaram producing one with the name and photograph of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi in the state assembly.

He added insult to injury by producing a photo identity card for Union Industry Minister and senior ideologue of the ruling DMK, Murasoli Maran, alleging that they were freely available from a private enterprise handling the Election Commission's job.

While Speaker P T R Palanivel Rajan rushed to conclude that an inquiry would be ordered into the availability of the two cards, he expressed inability to do anything further.

The commission is the appropriate authority, and the chief electoral officer of the state functioned under the authority and directions of the poll panel, he held, observing that Sundaram should have obtained his permission before presenting the documents before the House.

The speaker's views were shared by Education Minister K Anbazhagan, who is also Leader of the House, in the absence of Karunanidhi, who could not attend the day's proceedings due to illness.

However, the speaker ruled that no minister could reply to the discussion as the chief electoral officer was not a functionary of the state government. Instead, he suggested that political parties with complaints about alleged irregularities in the issuance of voter identity cards could meet Chief Electoral Officer Mruthyunjay Sarangi, in a delegation.

Sarangi was present in the officials' gallery of the assembly when the issue came up, after being alerted about a special mention on the subject coming up for discussion.

The Sundaram expose comes in the wake of complaints of large-scale bogus identity cards being issued on the eve of assembly elections in the state. While political parties blamed the ruling DMK, charging it with 'scientific rigging', the Election Commission ordered personal re-verification of every voter in 42 assembly constituencies of 234 in the state, including those of most ministers in the DMK government.

According to official sources, many 'voters' who were asked to appear before the local verification officers with proof of residence failed to turn up with documents like ration cards, bank passbooks or permanent account numbers issued by the income-tax authorities.

In some cases, letters seeking such verification bounced back to the issuing authorities, as 'addresses' proved to be non-existent.

The Election Commission ordered a re-verification based on the report of a senior official despatched to Madras, to hold a preliminary inquiry into charges of bogus identity cards in select city constituencies. However, this too does not take into account charges of 'missing names', which may become more visible only on polling day, when individual voters visiting booths find their names either missing from the voters' list or their votes already cast by someone else, possibly carrying a photo identity card carrying his name, but the photograph of the persons who cast the vote.

The 'identity cards' produced by Sundaram, however, carried both photographs and names of Karunanidhi and Maran.

Members cutting across party lines in the assembly made a specific mention to the plight of voters and urged the government to ensure that all 'eligible voters' were issued identity cards within a month.

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