Gujarat: Couple booked for manipulating voter list

RAJKOT: A couple from Khambhaliya town in Devbhumi Dwarka district was booked for allegedly changing the residential address of a poll contestant on the election commission of India (ECI) portal. The couple committed the fraud to debar a strong candidate from contesting the municipality election held in February this year, sources said.
Jam Khambhalia police on Friday night booked Karan Joshi and his wife Sejal following a complaint filed by Vasu Doru.The complainant had given an application to the police in February. After conducting investigation, police booked the Joshi couple under IPC sections 465, 466, 468, 471, 120 (b) and relevant sections of I-T Act which mainly deal with forgery.
According to the complainant, his wife Geeta was to contest the municipality election from ward number 4 which was a reserved seat for scheduled caste candidates. However, the final voter list published by the election officer wrongly showed Doru family’s residential address coming under Shaktinagar gram panchayat. The mistake meant Geeta was not eligible to contest from ward 4 as she was not a voter of that ward.
Also, the name of the complainant’s mother Jaya, who was the incumbent ward member that time, was deleted in the final list. However, the names of the Doru family and their address were correctly mentioned in the primary voter list.
Doru approached cops with a complaint regarding change in residential address on the record of election commission. The cyber cell of Devbhumi Dwarka police found the login record of Joshi couple on the national voter service application. They changed the address of the complainant by uploading a fake electricity bill of PGVCL.