Revanth writes to ECI, seeks 4-wk extension for electoral roll claims
With the claims and objections period currently scheduled from Aug 17 to Sept 16, Revanth said the timeline was inadequate and sought a four-week extension.
“The SIR in Telangana has now reached a stage where the numbers themselves invite the commission’s attention,” Revanth said in the letter. The chief minister described the composition of the ASDD list as a matter of “grave concern”, pointing out that 45.1 lakh of the 73.3 lakh flagged entries, nearly 62%, had been classified as “permanently shifted”. “A voter who was simply at work, traveling, or temporarily away when the BLO visited is treated identically to someone who has permanently relocated,” Revanth said. “Electors who have actually moved were given no assistance to file an application for enrolling as voters at a new address, yet their names are routinely marked for deletion at their previous residence,” he said. Revanth further contended that voters marked as “shifted” were excluded from the statutory notice mechanism. Notices are issued only in cases involving data anomalies or unmapped entries, he said, leaving many eligible citizens unaware that their names could be deleted from the rolls.
He argued that the current verification methodology suffers from serious structural flaws, including the failure to distinguish between temporary absence and permanent relocation. He also flagged the lack of facilitation for voters who had genuinely moved residence. Hyderabad: With nearly one in every three Telangana voters set to face scrutiny under the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Saturday urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to extend the claims and objections period by four weeks, warning that lakhs of eligible electors risk being left out of the final rolls.
“The commission should notify a wider list of admissible documents that could be obtained locally, including at the mandal level, to ensure voters were not excluded for want of documentation,” he said. In addition, he proposed setting up help desks, especially in urban districts, to assist voters in responding to notices and securing admissible documents.