Telangana Congress chief slams ECI over voter deletions

Hyderabad, Aug 18 (SocialNews.XYZ) Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president Mahesh Kumar Goud on Tuesday criticised the Election Commission of India for deleting more than 73 lakh names from the draft voter list under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).

He alleged that, in the name of SIR, the Election Commission arbitrarily deleted the names of so many voters.

He claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre has been weakening constitutional institutions since 2014. He remarked that the Election Commission of India, like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED), has turned into an affiliate organisation of the BJP.

The TPCC chief expressed anger that, due to regulations of the poll panel, poor people were losing their voting rights. He asked, “Who has given you the right to delete the votes of citizens born in this country?”

He criticised the Election Commission for deleting over 73 lakh votes and questioned why another 92 lakh people were still voters after being placed in different categories.

Mahesh Kumar Goud said many families did not have 2002 SIR details because of delimitation and changes in polling stations. He asked how they would bring those details, adding that they were all born in India and had cast their votes several times.

He said whether the voters have 2002 SIR details or not, they should be given an opportunity. He demanded a proper inquiry and that the voting rights of every eligible voter be protected.

The TPCC president demanded that the Election Commission extend the SIR deadline to conduct a thorough inquiry into all the cases.

He alleged that Booth Level Officers (BLOs) did not visit houses to distribute enumeration forms and said the majority of voters deleted were poor and migrant workers.

The Election Commission on Monday published the draft voter list. As many as 73.3 lakh electors have been removed from draft electoral rolls. They were marked as absent, shifted, dead, or duplicate.

Another 92.8 lakh electors included in the draft rolls have been flagged for anomalies in their enumeration details or for not being mapped.

Statistics show that around 43 lakh of the 73.3 lakh voters removed from the draft rolls were from Hyderabad and the adjoining districts of Rangareddy and Medchal‑Malkajgiri.

Source: IANS