With a whopping 38,493 duplicate votes reportedly being registered in the Tirupati Assembly constituency (constituency no. 167), doubts began to arise over the fairness of the conduct of the upcoming elections.
It may be recalled that many Election Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) were downloaded unauthorisedly by using the Returning Officer’s login credentials ahead of the 2021 by-election for the Tirupati Parliamentary constituency.
Based on a complaint filed in April 2021 by the then BJP candidate and former bureaucrat K. Ratna Prabha, the Election Commission of India (ECI) initiated a probe and found irregularities prima facie.