Hyderabad: More than 45 lakh of the 73.39 lakh voters who did not submit enumeration forms during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Telangana have been found to have permanently shifted to other states, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) C. Sudharsan Reddy said on Tuesday.
A day after the deadline for submitting enumeration forms ended, Reddy released details of voters classified as Absent, Shifted or Dead (ASD).
During the door-to-door exercise by Booth Level Officers (BLOs) across the state, a total of 73,39,234 enumeration forms could not be collected.
Telangana has 3,38,26,448 voters, of whom the enumeration forms of 2,64,87,214 (78.30 per cent) have been digitised. The remaining 73,39,234 voters, or 21.70 per cent, did not submit their enumeration forms.
Of these, 9,22,230 voters were found to be dead, while 11,25,546 were absent or untraceable. As many as 45,18,916 voters were found to have permanently shifted to other states. Another 6,70,203 were already enrolled, while 1,02,294 voters were placed under the ‘Others’ category.
According to the status report as of August 10, Hyderabad recorded the lowest rate of enumeration-form digitisation in the state at 58.89 per cent. Of the 47,36,669 electors in Hyderabad, forms of only 27,89,214 voters have been digitised, leaving around 19.47 lakh voters facing possible deletion.
Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district recorded the highest digitisation rate, with 94.31 per cent of enumeration forms completed, ranking first among Telangana’s 33 districts.
The draft electoral rolls will be published on August 17, with the period for filing claims and objections running from August 17 to September 16. The notice phase for disposal of claims and objections will continue from August 17 to October 15, while the final electoral rolls are scheduled to be published on October 19.
Election officials are likely to issue notices to around 60 lakh voters whose enumeration forms have been reported to contain anomalies.
Meanwhile, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) working president K. T. Rama Rao held a meeting with the party’s SIR committee on Tuesday. He reviewed the party’s grassroots activities related to the revision process, the problems being faced by voters and measures needed to prevent the deletion of eligible voters’ names.
Addressing the media later, KTR expressed concern that around 73 to 74 lakh votes had been classified as ‘uncollectible’, with no response received regarding them so far. He said there was a possibility that many of these votes could be deleted.
KTR also said there were reports of anomalies in around 60 lakh votes. He said it appeared that by the time the SIR process was completed, only around two crore votes would remain without issues. According to information from the Election Commission, he said, some of the remaining votes could face deletion, while others contained errors or raised suspicions.
He stressed that it was crucial to ensure that not a single eligible voter was unjustly removed from the electoral rolls.
KTR said election officials had announced plans to publish the draft voter list and that the party would hold district-wise meetings after its publication. He added that the party had already consulted its legal cell and sought advice from legal experts.
KTR said discussions with legal experts had focused on the legal steps and party-level initiatives required to secure justice for eligible voters whose names might be removed from the rolls, as well as ways to mobilise the party machinery to assist affected voters.
With IANS inputs