ith the entire opposition crying itself hoarse that scores of names in the voters’ lists in the capital region have been deleted indiscriminately and approaching the Election Commission on the complaint, the latter has deputed a 14-member team to look into the complaints.
The team led by the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal landed in the capital and was said to have made some preliminary enquiries. The team would be divided into teams and was expected to visit select polling stations in the 24 Assembly constituencies in the next few days.
Vocal campaign
The visit of the team has set off a frenzy of activity in the offices of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and also the political parties which took up the vocal campaign against the alleged deliberate deletion. Both sides are determined to prove themselves to be on the right side of the law.
GHMC Commissioner and District Election Officer (DEO) Somesh Kumar is on record stating that 4.77 lakh voters have been deleted from the voters list only after due verification and issuance of notices. He had also claimed the deleted names were those that had been enrolled twice or dead.
Door-lock cases of 27.2 lakh too were identified and notices were issued to 25.34 lakh following which the voters’ names were deleted and kept on the ECI website. In Greater Hyderabad limits, 1.06 lakh voters were allegedly enrolled twice of which 53, 980 got notices – as per the DEO claim.
However, former MLA and Congress leader Marri Sashidhar Reddy contests the municipal officials figures and charges that “this is for the first time that such large scale deletion has happened”. In the Sanatnagar constituency alone 25,000 names were deleted from voters lists, he alleges and points out that officials were suspended in Uttar Pradesh when voters’ deletions with malafide intention were proved.
Dr. Reddy had already presented sample “proof” of 234 instances where deletions were made without notices being issued. “We have sufficient proof to show that deletions were done deliberately in at least nine or 10Aassembly segments targeting ‘settlers’,” alleges N. Ramchander Rao, BJP MLC.
“Scientific process”
GHMC officials, however, are sure that a “scientific process” of deletions was followed and that it could be proven. “If we go as per Aadhar records to avoid duplication, we may have to remove four lakh voters more,” they insist. Meanwhile, the EC team has invited political parties to participate in a meeting scheduled to be held in the Dr. MCRHRD Institute in Jubilee Hills on December 31.
This is for the first time that such large-scale deletion has happened
Marri Sashidhar Reddy, Congress leader
