Hyderabad: A day after saying that there was a cap on the number of Form 7 filings per voter, Telangana Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) C Sudharsan Reddy on Tuesday, October 13, directed district election officials to organise special camps at every polling station for enrolment of left-out and first-time voters, and to conduct a special drive for verification of entries deleted during SIR.
In a communication to District Election Officers (DEOs), Sudharsan Reddy said the Election Commission of India is committed to ensuring that “every eligible elector is added and no ineligible entries remain in the electoral roll”.
The DEOs, therefore, are directed to issue necessary instructions to all the Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to organise Special Camps on October 15 and 16 at every polling station, where left-out and first-time or young electors can visit and file applications in Form 6 for enrolling themselves as electors in the electoral roll, he said.
The Booth Level Officers (BLOs) shall remain present, and the Booth Level Agents (BLAs) will also be required to be present at the designated locations on the two days, he said.
The CEO directed the DEOs to give wide publicity on organising special camps.
Memo on Form 7
On Monday, the CEO prescribed a procedure for EROs and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers (AEROs) to dispose of Form 7 applications, the number of which has been limited even though it hasn’t been specified how many filings can be done by an elector.
Form 7 is used to object to the inclusion of a name or to request the deletion of a name from the existing electoral roll.
A controversy erupted when Form 7 was submitted in bulk in the Goshamahal and Musheerabad Assembly constituencies.
Fifteen pre-printed applications surfaced from a polling booth in the Goshamahal Assembly, seeking deletion of Muslim voters. Hindutva firebrand and former BJP leader T Raja Singh represents Goshamahal.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi warned of protests over the misuse of Form 7 during SIR in Telangana. He said that if the filing of Form 7 with false claims does not stop, Hyderabad will witness protests bigger than what Delhi’s Jantar Mantar saw.
In addition, Form 6 applications received between October 15 and October 16 will be included in the final list after due verification and completion of the prescribed procedure.
The final electoral roll list will be released on November 9.
With PTI inputs
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