Mangaluru: The BJP on Monday charged J R Lobo, MLA, Mangaluru City South, of creating duplicate voter IDs to help in the ensuing polls and demanded the district deputy commissioner and the election commission to identify such duplicate votes and nullify them besides punishing the guilty.

Monappa Bhandary, former MLC, on Monday said at least 600 applications for enrollment had been deposited in bulk in the election officer’s cabin in the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) office when “genuine” candidates for enrollment had been waiting in queue for their turn.

He said the applications were in the name of students from other parts of the country and that at least 10-20 applications bore the same residential address of Mangaluru.

“The applications for enrollment are of students, mainly from Kerala. Their background isn’t verified. As per rules, if the student is around 18 years of age, he/she has to submit his/her birth certificate to get enrolled for voting. If the student is slightly older, he/she needs to get a letter from the officer concerned in his/her native place that the person does not have voting right anywhere else.

Also, it has to be proven that the candidate wishing to get the voting right here has been staying here since at least six months. However, the officers at the MCC have been enrolling voters with only a letter from the hostel warden where these students stay. How is this possible,” Bhandary questioned.

Speaking further, he alleged that Lobo had used his power to get the revenue officer from Surathkal, Mohammed, transferred to the MCC for the purpose. The other person involved in the corruption, according to Bhandary, is Santhosh.

Vedavyas Kamath of the BJP said as Lobo was once the commissioner of the MCC, he knew the in and out of the system and the exact procedures to get the “duplicate votes” included in the voters’ list.

According to Kamath, at least 10,000 enrollments for voting have been done at the MCC from January 1 to November 30 last year. From December 1, 2017 till date 5,125 names were registered while up to 3,600 names were deleted from the voters’ list, he alleged.

The district unit of the BJP will gather details and submit them along a memorandum to the district Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Senthil S and the Election Commission to verify every new name enrolled in the voters’ list since last year and delete the fake ones.

Yogish Bhat, who contested the seat against Lobo in the 2013 elections to the legislative assembly, said the MLA had won the previous election by creating duplicate votes. “However, we could not challenge him as by the time we learnt about the fraud, it was too late,” Bhat said.

When asked, Lobo said, “Every political party has to encourage people to enrol themselves for voting and it is legal. If applications are not in order, let the Election Commissioner reject such applications. The allegations are nothing but the BJP’s lack of knowledge on enrolment.”