Hyderabad: Over two lakh voters in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Telangana find themselves in a peculiar spot. They have received notices, but the reason is not specified.
According to The Hindu, which quotes a report by Sabar Institute and Constitutional Guardians Forum, as many as 2,01,249 voters, which is about 2.2 per cent of Telangana’s voter population, are recorded under the “Reason Not Recorded” category.
All above 35 years age
The report points out that none of the 2.2 per cent of voters is below the age of 35 years. “Nobody in the list is younger than 35. The youngest person is exactly 35 years old. The most common ages are 42 to 50. The middle age of the group is 52. They are spread all over the State — 30,971 of the 36,169 booths have at least one such name. So this is not a mistake in a few documents,” the analysis states.
The reasons for the notices are empty. Lead researcher Sabir Ahamed observes that the empty boxes are a problem. “This means that there is a gap in coordination and matching of the list with notices served, especially as regards the reason,” he said.
Why a voter is issued a notice in SIR
According to the recent data released by the Telangana Election Commission, 92,85,255 notices were issued. Of these, 32,37,825 (34.9 per cent) voters are listed as unmapped, while 25,97,790 (28 per cent) have a mismatch in the parent’s name.
There are 11,14,659 cases (12 per cent) of voters whose names are found mismatched, and 9,76,036 cases (10.5 per cent) are found to have a parent-age difference of less than 15 years, while 7,08,896 cases (7.6 per cent) have a progeny age gap of less than nine months.
The SABR report points out that none of the 2.2 per cent of voters is below the age of 35 years. “Nobody in the list is younger than 35. The youngest person is exactly 35 years old. The most common ages are 42 to 50. The middle age of the group is 52. They are spread all over the State — 30,971 of the 36,169 booths have at least one such name. So this is not a mistake in a few documents,” the analysis states.
Ahamed says there can be a possibility of a printing mistake or a computer error. But why only voters who are above 35 years of age?
“The reason why the age 35 cut-off is important is that if these blank boxes were a printing mistake or a computer error, the people would be of all ages, like everyone else in the lists. Instead, there is a clean wall at 35 and almost everybody is male. That means a rule exists and was applied. We just dont know what the rule is called,” he pointed out.
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