‘No abnormal deletions in voters’ lists’

Names deleted during electoral roll purification in 2015, says CEO

Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar has asserted that there were no abnormal deletions in the voters’ lists ahead of elections as is being alleged by some political parties and said the huge number of votes had been deleted during the verification exercise conducted under the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme in 2015.

Voter strength that was 2.84 crore at the time of State formation in 2014 dropped by 37 lakh after the launch of the NERPAP. Of the deleted votes, the GHMC area contributed to 6.32 lakh voters and the number was 28.70 lakh in the rest of the State. Verification conducted in the Medchal district revealed that of the 7.4 lakh votes deleted during NERPAP, 6.8 lakh had been found to be genuine.

“There were instances of elector population ratio exceeding 1,000 and these had been rectified in the process. We are getting the information of the deleted votes in Ranga Reddy, Medak and Hyderabad districts in a day or two,” he said adding there were no political pressures in the deletion of the names and the election authority had scrupulously followed the laid down procedures in conducting the exercise.

Polling stations

Steps had been taken to ensure that the lists of names of deleted voters were hosted on the CEO’s official website

www.ceotelangana.gov.in and lists had been handed over to the individual districts to conduct verification. The election authority had taken up rationalisation of polling stations in view of the ensuing elections to the Lok Sabha as a result of which the total number of polling stations had gone up by 2,030 to 34,603 against close to 32,600 polling stations of the previous elections. The CEO, who explained the progress of the summary revision of electoral rolls 2019, said he had decided to address letters to more than one crore households across the State exhorting them to ensure that their names were enrolled during the summary revision. Each of the letter would be accompanied with a postcard addressed to the CEO’s office enabling voters to give suggestions in respect of their names, difficulties if any in accessing the respective polling stations and other related details. Replying to queries, he said the CEO’s office had initiated action into the complaints received against officials engaged in polling duties in the recent elections and explanations were sought from three returning officers in this regard.