Ahead of the bye elctions for the Jubliee Hills seat in Telangana, fake voter ID cards with photos of actresses Tamannaah Bhatia, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Rakulpreet Singh were found.
Authorities of the Election Commission said they are looking into the matter. All three voter cards referred to the same address.
Voting for the by-election to the Jubilee Hills Assembly seat will take place on 11 November, with counting scheduled for 14 November. The by-election is being held because the seat fell vacant following the death of BRS MLA Maganti Gopinath in June this year due to a heart attack.
Congress had declared its candidate as V Naveen Yadav, and the opposition BRS had given their candidate Maganti Sunitha, the widow to the deceased MLA. BJP leader Lankala Deepak Reddy is also in the race.
The opposition BRS had earlier accused the ruling Congress of registering “thousands of fake voters" in the Jubilee Hills constituency. Working President of Bharath Rashtra Samithi KT Rama Rao had made the claims.
“The people are very angry with Congress, so they know they won’t get votes. That’s why, in one house, they got 43 fake votes registered. In each house, 43 fake votes. In total, they registered thousands of fake votes. We are doing an exercise on that, we will counter it in whatever way necessary," the former minister had said.
The BRS has also filed a petition in the Telangana High Court over alleged fake voters.
Hearing on the petitions filed by BRS Jubliee Hills candidate Maganti Sunitha, the High Court observed that there is no need for any directions. Since the State Election Commission is already in the process of revising the electoral rolls, the court said it cannot issue any further orders.
