Hyderabad: A public hearing in Hyderabad’s Musheerabad constituency has brought forward complaints from voters who alleged that their names were deleted from electoral rolls or flagged for verification during Telangana’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
Organised by the Telangana Voter Rights Forum on October 10, the hearing saw dozens of voters and their family members present their grievances before a panel of retired officials, academics, and social activists. The panel assured them that their concerns would be taken up with electoral authorities.
The complainants included families whose members were marked as deceased despite being alive, voters classified as permanently shifted despite living in the same locality, and people who received notices asking them to establish their relationship with their mothers.
41 pc of voters received notices
The forum said it began a door-to-door verification exercise in Indira Nagar in Musheerabad in August 2026.
A team of 20 volunteers initially examined electoral records for polling booths 94 and 95 using the 2025 voter lists as the base. As the polling booths were not located in contiguous areas, the team eventually verified 1,829 voters across 78 polling booths.
After the draft electoral roll and the ASDD (Absent, Shifted, Dead, and Duplicate) list were published, volunteers revisited the area to check whether voters had been included, had received notices or had been deleted. They also examined the reasons recorded for marking voters as deceased, shifted, absent or untraceable.
According to the forum, 752 of the 1,829 voters surveyed, or 41.11 per cent, received notices.
The verification covered cases in which people marked as dead were found alive, residents classified as shifted continued to live at their addresses, and voters listed as absent or untraceable were subsequently located.
For the public hearing, the forum selected 15 polling booths with high numbers of ASDD cases from among the 78 booths surveyed. It also requested the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to send Booth Level Officers (BLOs) from those booths to the hearing so that corrective action could be initiated.
Families report deletions and notices
Among the cases presented to the panel, 21 voters whose names and those of their family members appeared in the ASDD list and who had received notices gave their statements. Relatives, neighbours and friends also attended to confirm that the voters were alive and had lived in the locality for years.
Some of the cases highlighted at the hearing included:
- Ten family members deleted: Saibaba, a painter, said the names of 10 members of his family were removed on the grounds that they had permanently shifted. He said the family had moved to an adjacent lane after selling its house and that they had missed submitting the enumeration form. He said he possessed Aadhaar and other documents.
- Voter marked as untraceable: Jayasree, wife of Saranappa, from polling station 126 in Bholakpur, said she had lived in the area for 30 years. She said her husband’s name was deleted because he was marked as untraceable, while she received a notice over a name mismatch.
- Living man recorded as deceased: Jasibunnisa said her husband, Abdul Kareem Malik, a resident of polling booth 128 in Bholakpur, was marked as dead. She said the family had not received the enumeration form from the BLO and was shocked to learn the stated reason for the deletion.
- Six family members asked to prove relationship: Kaneez Fathima said six members of her family received notices asking them to establish their relationship with their mother, despite having voted for 20 years. She also alleged that the BLOs were not responding to their concerns.
The forum said several residents complained about the time and wages lost while dealing with the process. They also raised concerns about not receiving enumeration forms, inadequate information about the SIR, alleged demands for bribes by BLOs and notices issued on grounds they considered illogical.
Many residents said they had lived in the area for decades and had also mapped their names to the 2002 electoral roll. Some opposed being asked to submit Form 6, arguing that they were existing voters and should not have to register as new electors.
Panel members criticise SIR process
The panel comprised Professor Haragopal, retired from the University of Hyderabad; Akunuri Murali, a retired IAS officer; Professor Padmaja Shaw, retired from Osmania University; social activists S.Q. Masood and Rubina Nafees Fathima; and retired editor Ramachandra Murthy.
Panel members raised concerns about the impact of the SIR process on eligible voters, particularly working-class and marginalised communities.
Rubina Nafees Fathima criticised the process for causing distress to large numbers of people and said the state should conduct public verification of electoral rolls at the polling booth level.
Professor Padmaja Shaw said the revision had raised concerns about the exclusion of eligible voters, contrasting it with the Election Commission’s earlier efforts to enrol voters.
S.Q. Masood alleged that the current SIR process was affecting the voting rights of working-class and marginalised communities.
Akunuri Murali said the exercise seriously threatened the voting rights of eligible citizens. Calling for accountability from the government, he claimed that in Musheerabad, 45 per cent of voters had been deleted and 75 per cent of the remaining voters were classified as doubtful.
Panel endorses Forums’s set of resolutions
Speaking to Siasat.com, A. Suneetha, a social activist, said that the forum demands complete scrapping of SIR.
Following the hearing, the forum read out a set of resolutions proposed by Suneetha, which were endorsed by the panel members.
The resolutions called for scrapping the SIR exercise and repealing the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, in favour of an independent and transparent appointment process for election commissioners.
The forum also demanded that the Election Commission retain responsibility for voter enumeration and that no eligible person be excluded solely for failing to submit an SIR form. It called for every eligible voter facing deletion to receive a notice and an opportunity to be heard.
Other demands included removing the requirement to map voters to the 2002 electoral roll, fixing responsibility on officials involved in wrongful deletions and bulk Form 7 objections, and restoring wrongly deleted names without forcing voters to apply through Form 6 as new electors.
The resolutions also sought formal recognition of public hearings at village, ward and booth levels as part of electoral-roll verification. The forum called for daily Ward Sabha meetings in Musheerabad to publicly share the draft SIR roll, ASDD list and notices, followed by time-bound action by Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) to restore eligible voters.
