The Congress had met with the Election Commission on Tuesday, October 3, and requested for postponement of publication till the disposal of all applications and removal of death, multiple and shifted voters.
Over 22 lakh voter names have been deleted from the electoral rolls by the Election Commission of India ahead of the Telangana Assembly elections. While announcing that over three crore people (3,17,17,389) are eligible to vote in the elections, the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj has announced the deletion of 22,02,168 names in the last two years of which 4,89,574 voters are from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and surrounding areas. “2,47,756 dead voters have also been deleted from the electoral roll in this year,” said a note from the Telangana CEO.
Hours after the Election Commission published the final electoral rolls for the upcoming Legislative Assembly elections in the state on Wednesday, October 4, the Telangana Congress has alleged that there are major discrepancies in the final voter list including multiple entries of voters. Congress alleged that the actual number of voters in the state is much lesser than 3,17,17,389 published by the EC.
The issue of bogus voting and mass deletion of names is hardly new. The 2018 Assembly elections in Telangana witnessed 22 lakh voter names being deleted from the electoral rolls without informing the voters. The then Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar accepted that many voters could indeed not exercise their right and said that a mistake had been made and issued an apology.
Speaking to TNM, Congress senior vice president G Niranjan said that the Congress would conduct a survey of its own and approach the Telangana High Court to refute the Election Commission’s voter list.
“After we brought up the issue with the GHMC Commissioner, who is also the District Election officer for the Hyderabad District, we were informed that 3175 multiple entries were found on verification in the Bahadurpura constituency alone, of which roughly 2120 are still not cleared,” Niranjan told TNM. Further, in a letter written to Telangana Congress General Secretary Feroz Khan, the CEO mentioned that in the Nampally constituency under Hyderabad district, there are 46, 396 additional names in the electoral list as of September 1.
Niranjan said the process was further complicated as the Electoral Registration Officers net, digital system for Electoral officials, was frozen which rendered repairing the issue more difficult. The Congress had requested for postponement of publication till the disposal of all applications and removal of death, multiple and shifted voters.
“Time was given from August 21, the day draft voter list was published till September 19 for claims and objections post which the disposal would take place by September 28. The final list’s publication was done on October 4. Considering that Anganwadi workers, who are also Booth level officers, have been protesting since September 11, it wouldn’t be possible for reverification to have happened seamlessly,” Niranjan said.
According to the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer, there has been an increase of 17, 42, 470 voters as of January 5, 2023. “Out of the electors, 1,58,71,493 are males, 1,58,43,339 are females and 2,557 belong to the third gender category. There are 15,338 service electors and 2,780 overseas electors,” said the CEO office. The office also stated that there have been an addition of 17,01, 087 additions, 9,10,694 deletions and 5,80,208 corrections from September 19 to September 28.
The Telangana CEO stated that there has been an improvement in the gender ratio from 992 to 998, gender ratio in the 18 to 19 age group has also increased from 707 to 743. “There are 4,43,943 voters who are above 80 years of age and 5,06,493 persons with disabilities (PwDs). The number of third gender persons has increased to 2,557,” said the press note.
