SIR: Hyderabad Congress flags gaps, cites 148 duplicate cases

Hyderabad: Hyderabad District Congress Committee (DCC) president Syed Khalid Saifullah on Friday, August 28, raised concerns over “serious gaps” in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being done by the Election Commission of India (ECI) across Hyderabad. Showing some of the anomalies in the Yakutpura constituency, he stated that inadequate voter details and lack of crucial lists were hampering field-level verification of voters.

Saifullah on Friday visited ward meetings being conducted at polling booth locations and interacted with Booth Level Agents (BLAs), party workers and election officials. He stated that political parties were expected to participate in the verification process but had not been provided the information required to identify and assist voters whose entries needed scrutiny, correction or additional documentation.

According to a press release, the Congress leader said that one of the major problems pertain to the Absent, Shifted and Dead (ASD) lists supplied for verification, which did not contain house numbers or adequate address particulars. “How does the Election Commission expect BLAs to visit households when the ASD list itself does not contain house numbers? Without proper addresses, how are BLAs supposed to locate these voters and verify their status?” he asked.

He said the problem in the SIR in Hyderabad was particularly serious in densely populated parts of Hyderabad, where locating a voter merely on the basis of a name and limited locality details could be difficult. Saifullah said the anomaly and unmapped voter lists had also not been provided to political parties, despite the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) having directed all BLOs and EROs to share these lists with political parties.

“Despite the CEO’s clear directions to BLOs and EROs, we have still not received the anomaly and unmapped lists. If we do not know which voters have been flagged, how can our BLAs reach them, explain the problem, guide them about the required documents and help genuine voters resolve their anomalies or get correctly mapped?” he asked.

Saifullah opined that the issue is even more concerning because discrepancies continued to remain in the electoral rolls despite the SIR exercise. Citing examples from the Yakutpura Assembly constituency, he said the Hyderabad DCC had compiled 148 sets of apparent duplicate voter entries that required verification by the election authorities.

The DCC compilation showed side-by-side electoral records identified by the party as possible duplicate cases. Several entries according to the material provided showed identical or closely matching names, relatives’ names and photographs while having differences in EPIC numbers, polling parts, addresses, ages etc.

“If such apparent duplicate entries continue to remain even after SIR, serious questions arise about the effectiveness and quality of the exercise. Every such case must be properly verified and corrected, but no genuine voter should be deleted merely on the basis of suspicion or a database match,” Saifullah said.

He demanded that the Election Commission immediately provide political parties with complete anomaly and unmapped voter lists, furnish house numbers and sufficient address particulars in the ASD lists.