Over 2 lakh Telangana voters received SIR notices without stated reason: Study

As many as 2,01,249 voters in Telangana received Logical Discrepancy notices during the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls without any explanation being provided in the “Reason” column, an analysis by the Sabar Institute has found.

The institute said it examined all Logical Discrepancy lists released by the Election Commission for Telangana, covering 36,169 polling booths and 92,85,255 voter names. According to its findings, the notices issued to 2,01,249 voters did not mention the discrepancy for which they had been flagged, Maktoob Media reported.

The institute pointed out that the notices contained no indication of a mismatch, error or other explanation for the action. It cited examples from individual polling booths, including one in Uppal where 77 voters were issued notices without a stated reason and another in Kamareddy where 75 voters received similar notices.

The analysis also found that Muslim names accounted for 25.1% of the voters who received notices with blank reasons. The institute compared this figure with the Muslim community’s 12.7% share of Telangana’s population, based on Census 2011 data.

A significant gender and age pattern was also identified among the affected voters. The institute said 96.7% of those flagged without an explanation were men, while only 38 of the 2,01,249 voters were aged below 40.

Based on these patterns, the institute argued that the notices appeared to reflect the application of a specific rule rather than a random process. However, it said the Election Commission had not disclosed what criterion or rule was being applied in these cases.

The institute also shared examples from what it identified as the Election Commission’s Logical Discrepancy list for booth 59 in Kapuwada, Sirpur. One entry involved a 58-year-old man identified by the institute as having a Muslim name, where the reason column was left blank.

Another example involved a 49-year-old man identified as having a Hindu name, whose notice also contained no explanation. In contrast, the entry immediately above it, concerning a 36-year-old man, specifically cited a mismatch in the parent’s name.

The examples, according to the institute, demonstrated that while some notices clearly identified the alleged discrepancy, others provided no information about the issue involved.

The institute questioned how voters could effectively challenge or appeal against a notice when the alleged discrepancy itself was not disclosed.