Telangana Congress flags errors in final voter list; alleges multiple entries, other discrepancies

Hyderabad: Congress has flagged the errors in the final voter list for Telangana.

The Election Commission published the final voter list for Telangana on October 4

The political parties had earlier expressed their concerns about the inclusion of fake and duplicate voters in the list. Leaders of the Congress party had also given a representation to the chief election commissioner (CEO) in this regard a day before the release of the list.

However, after the final list was published omitting around 22 lakh duplicate and fake voters, Congress members still pointed to the errors in the list where bogus voters are concerned.

G Niranjan, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) senior vice-president and chairman of the Election Commission Coordination Committee (ECCC) said, “The multiple entries, Photo Similar Entries, dead and shifted voters are still in the final voters list published by the Election Commission yesterday. The Election Commission has once again failed to publish the purified voters list. The house numbers printed on the voter's list are not in order in many cases. The voters have been confused about finding their house numbers to check their vote.”

“The District Congress Committees have been urged to take upon an intensive drive to identify the discrepancies in the voters list and to send it to PCC to take up further action,” he added.

Earlier, senior TPCC members had given a representation to the CEC, which stated that there are around 22 lakh ‘photo similar voters’ within the constituencies and 12 lakh across the constituencies in the state. Some voters are registered both in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The Draft Voters List published in August revealed all these discrepancies. All such voters with multiple entries, those shifted, dead, bogus, and fake need to be weeded out from the list, and genuine voters should be enrolled and made aware of the voting process.

Meanwhile, addressing the media, the chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar had clarified that deletions from the electoral roll were done only when Form 7 was received and ground verification was done by Block Level Officers.

“Deletion was not done suo moto. All deletions have been verified. A total of 22 lakh dead and duplicate voters have been deleted between 2022 and 2023. More than 1,000 meetings were held with representatives at every level so that the process of updating is inclusive, transparent, and involved all political parties,” he said.