Kerala woman alleges 9 fake votes added at her address in BJP's lone Thrissur seat

A flat owner in Kerala’s Thrissur district has filed a complaint alleging that nine fake votes were registered using her address without her knowledge.

The irregularities came to light in flat No. 4C, Capital Village Apartments in Poonkunnam, where the owner, Prasanna, said she is the only person in the household who votes in Thrissur.

Prasanna told reporters that her family consists of four adults and two children, with the rest of the adults registered to vote in their ancestral village of Poochinipadam. She said she learned about the nine additional names only when someone approached her for verification.

“We don’t know any of them. We have been living here for four years. It’s not right to add names to our address without our consent,” she said, adding that she has signed a complaint handed over to the district collector.

CPM workers alleged that similar voter list irregularities have occurred in other Poonkunnam flats, such as Water Lily and Capital Village. They claimed that vacant flats were used as fake addresses to transfer votes from other districts. “The fact that the real flat owner doesn’t even know these people makes the issue serious,” they said.

The allegations have added weight to the claims of CPM leader and former Thrissur candidate VS Sunil Kumar, who accused the Election Commission of allowing large-scale irregularities during voter registration. He alleged that in one booth alone, 280 applications arrived together and that names of people from other constituencies and migrant workers were added.

According to him, the EC eased the process by allowing voter registration using a postal card as address proof.

Thrissur was the only Lok Sabha seat in Kerala won by the BJP in 2024, with Suresh Gopi defeating Sunil Kumar of the LDF and K Muraleedharan of the UDF.

Opposition Leader VD Satheesan also demanded a thorough probe into the complaints, accusing the BJP of adding votes “in the wrong way” and undermining free and fair elections. He praised Rahul Gandhi for highlighting alleged poll manipulation and called on citizens to resist “fascism, autocracy, and communalism.”

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