The State election officials have started examining the proceedings of the special summary revision of electoral rolls conducted since the past general elections in 2014 following complaints over absence of names of voters in large numbers.
According to the Election Commission of India’s website, the State had a total of 2,83,27,193 voters - 1,44,72,054 men, 1,38,40,715 women, and 12,069 service voters at the time of final publication of the Electoral Roll Data - 2017.
The number, however, dropped significantly to 2,53,35,178 - 1,28,49,470 men, 1,24,75,576 women and 7,388 service voters by the time of final publication of Electoral Roll Data - 2018.
Even after taking into consideration the merger of six mandals and all revenue villages of Bhadrachalam mandal into Andhra Pradesh, the number of missing votes remained on the higher side, around 10% of the total electorate, with a major chunk of deleted votes reported from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits. The development stirred up a political controversy in the State with the main Opposition Congress alleging that the significant reduction in the number of electors was deliberate deletion of the names and is aimed at benefiting the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti.
The EC, according to sources, took note of the complaints being aired by the Congress leaders and sought a clarification from the State election authorities in this regard. Meanwhile, the election authority received close to four lakh new applications during the intensive summary revision of electoral roll taken up on the instructions of the EC which revised the schedule of SSR after dissolution of the Legislative Assembly.
These votes are in addition to the more than 8.1 lakh new electors that were added during the summary revision of electoral rolls taken up during May this year taking the total number of electors to 2.61 crore.
Officials said the claims of the new applicants would be verified soon and the names of all the eligible voters would be added to the list before the final publication of the rolls slated on October 8 as mandated by the Election Commission.
