“The BJP is reemploying its same tactic in Thiruvananthapuram to create bogus voters in large numbers ahead of the Assembly polls,” CPI(M) State Committee member and General Education Minister V. Sivankutty said. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of adding “bogus voters” in droves in constituencies in which it perceives a winning chance in the upcoming 2026 Assembly elections.
CPI(M) State Committee member and General Education Minister V. Sivankutty told a press conference on Sunday (December 21, 2025) that the BJP’s efforts to “replicate the 2024 Thrissur Lok Sabha election fraud model” were centred on four Assembly constituencies in Thiruvananthapuram district: Nemom, Vattiyoorkavu, Thiruvananthapuram and Kazhakuttom.
Mr. Sivankutty alleged that the BJP had committed brazen electoral fraud by bundling and registering its supporters from other districts at rental addresses in Thrissur ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, paving the way for Union Minister Suresh Gopi’s victory.
“The BJP had clubbed scores of voters from other districts in rental addresses in apartment complexes and gated communities in Thrissur. The BJP had mobilised the duplicate voters, mostly its members and their families, from outlying districts where the party thought it had a zero chance of victory, he added.
Mr. Sivankutty said the BJP used its sizeable election war chest to rent houses and apartments to create temporary residential addresses for its supporters merely as an “exercise in electoral fraud to give the party a leg-up at the ballot”. He alleged that the BJP also underwrote the costs of moving “duplicate” voters from other districts to Thrissur on polling day.
“The BJP is reemploying its same tactic in Thiruvananthapuram to create bogus voters in large numbers ahead of the Assembly polls,” he said.
Mr. Sivankutty noted that top BJP leaders, including BJP State president Rajiv Chandrasekhar and former Union Minister V. Muraleedharan, had shifted their residences and, consequently, their voter identity to Thiruvananthapuram.
“Other BJP leaders are camping in Thiruvananthapuram to facilitate the electoral fraud, he added.
Mr. Sivankutty said the BJP’s “fraudulent voter addition” in Thiruvananthapuram appeared unstoppable. “There are more than 300 high-rise apartment complexes in Thiruvananthapuram, with an estimated 12,000 living units. Most of them are unoccupied or available for rent, and the BJP is focusing on these addresses to add voters from outside districts in bulk,” he said.
Mr. Sivankutty said the gated communities were inaccessible to political agents. “We cannot knock on door fronts and verify whether there are new tenants. Moreover, there is nothing illegal about having one’s voter identity linked to one’s current domicile, whether rented or owned, he added.
Mr. Sivankutty noted that, unlike in residential neighbourhoods, political workers cannot have doorstep conversations, including distributing pamphlets or voters’ slips to residents.
He said the CPI(M) would move the Election Commission of India against the BJP’s “voter addition fraud”.
He said the party would also launch a coordinated effort to detect persons who have moved from other districts and rented houses for name’s sake to include themselves in constituencies the BJP considers winnable.
Published – December 21, 2025 03:09 pm IST
