A flat in BJP's lone Kerala seat used for adding nine fake votes 

A woman in Kerala has claimed that nine "fake" voters have been registered against her residential address in the state's Thrissur. According to the woman, she is the only person from her family who votes in Thrissur city. Her other family members, she claimed, are registered to vote in their native village of Poochinipadam.

Prasanna's allegations come against the backdrop of allegations of irregularities in voter lists levelled by the Opposition. Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of carrying out voter fraud in order to "steal" elections. The allegations from Kerala come from Thrissur city's Poonkunnam locality, where Prasanna owns a house at 4C, Capital Village Apartments.

Speaking to reporters, Prasanna said that she is the only person in the household who votes in Thrissur city. She said that her family includes four other adults and two children, with the adults registered to vote in their ancestral village of Poochinipadam. She learnt about the nine additional names recently when someone approached her for verification.

“We don’t know any of them [nine additional names]. 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 the 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.