Telangana SIR: CM Revanth Reddy Writes to CEC Gyanesh Kumar as Over 73 Lakh Voters Marked 'Absent, Shifted, Dead, Duplicate'

Hyderabad: In the midst of the notice phase for Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Telangana, which began a few days ago, chief minister A. Revanth Reddy has voiced serious concerns about 73.39 lakh voters placed under ‘Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate (ASDD)’ heads. As many as 2.65 crore enumeration forms have been digitised so far, with a large chunk of them isolated for issue of notices.

Together, they constituted the total voter strength of 3.38 crore on June 10, around the time when the pre-SIR came to an end in Telangana. 

In a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Saturday (August 29), Reddy said the SIR has now reached the stage where the numbers themselves invite the commission's attention. He noted that against the roll of 3.38 crore electors, as it stood on June 10, as many as 73.39 lakh entries (21.7%) had been placed under ASDD heads, and out of the 2.65 crore enumeration forms digitised, 60.50 lakh stood flagged for anomalies, while 32.36 lakh for missing link to the earlier roll. The latter were unmapped electors who did not provide their details from the SIR 2002 rolls in their enumeration forms. 

"The two sets are distinct and do not overlap; they add up to 92.86 lakh  and each of those electors is to be put on notice. Stated plainly, something close to one third of the electorate of the State must now either prove its entitlement afresh or lose its place on the final roll," he wrote.

Reddy pointed out the composition of the ASDD list itself was a matter of grave concern because of the 73.39 lakh flagged entries, 45.19 lakh (nearly 62%) were classified as "permanently shifted".

He noted that the current verification methodology suffers from critical structural flaws: 

"(a) There is no distinction between Temporary Absence and Permanent Relocation: A voter who was simply at work, travelling or temporarily away when the Booth Level Officer (BLO) visited is treated identically to someone who has permanently relocated. 

(b) Absence of Facilitation for Genuine Movers: Electors who have actually moved were given no assistance to file application for enrolling as voters at new address, yet their names are routinely marked for deletion at their previous residence.

(c) Exclusion from the Statutory Notice Mechanism : Deletions under the "shifted" category bypass formal notice procedures entirely - notices are issued only for data anomalies or unmapped entries.

Consequently, a large number of eligible citizens are systematically denied natural justice and will likely discover their disenfranchisement only when they are turned away at the polling booth on election day," he said.

He added that the entire SIR load is also distributed very unevenly across the state. Hyderabad, Medchal-Malkajgiri and Rangareddy districts hold a third of the state's electors between them, yet account for 58.6% of all ASDD entries and 41.9% of all verification notices. "These are the very districts in which tenancies are short, work draws families across ward and district boundaries several times in a decade, and a continuous paper record of residence is hardest to assemble," he said.

"In a city of Hyderabad’s density, a shift of a few hundred metres is enough to place a household in another polling station. Changing one's home for work or on marriage is an ordinary incident of Indian life, and should not lead to disenfranchisement. I would urge that the revision be so calibrated that ordinary mobility does not, in effect, operate as a disqualification for the electors," Reddy said.

The Hindu recently reported that the Election Commission of India (EC) had not offered clarity in any of its SIR related notifications about when the officials – particularly the Booth Level Officers (BLOs) working on the ground – should mark an elector as "shifted" and when as "absent" before applying the apparent arbitrariness of the application of reasons for ASDD.

The EC's Manual on Electoral Rolls (2023), stated that an absentee voter is that person who is "found to be absent for a limited period from place of his ordinary residence where he is enrolled as an elector". "An absentee may be with family or without family. But his name cannot be deleted, as in the existing law, a person absenting himself temporarily from his place of ordinary residence shall not, by reason thereof, case to be ordinarily resident therein," it states. The manual is supposed to be the rule book for all types of electoral roll revisions. However, this definition raises the question as to whether an elector found to be 'Absent' during enumeration should be deleted in the first place. 

The EC has never officially made public the breakdown of 'Shifted' and 'Absent' in total deletions, The Hindu reported. It has combined the two categories and presented only the aggregate numbers for every state where the SIR has happened. The breakdown has been derived by journalists and members of the civil society by processing the thousands of lists containing details of deleted electors. 

In this context, Reddy requested the commission to consider enlarging the window for claims and objections which runs from August 17 to September 16 by four more weeks so that electors whose names are missing from the draft roll – the ASDD class particularly – have sufficient time to find out where they stand and to file Form 6 claim for inclusion. He said the one month available in the present schedule is too short for a mammoth exercise of this nature.

He has also asked for a public reading of the draft rolls at gram sabhas and ward committee meetings in urban areas, as contemplated by EC manual. The chief minister wrote to the EC that allowing electors a reasonable period to reply to the notices as the present week's time to respond may not be sufficient, suggesting that it must allow not less than three to four weeks to electors to reply and produce papers.

He also suggested opening help desks at booth level to aid electors put on notice to procure admissible documents from concerned authorities, and a widened and clearly enumerated list of documents.

Further, Reddy sought to strengthen the capacity at the electoral registration officer level. "Additional Electoral Registration Officers have been appointed but the numbers sanctioned will not answer the volume of notice to be served and heard. In Hyderabad district, the notice load works out to upwards of 78,000 cases for each Assembly constituency, and the prescribed form of notice calls the elector to appear in person before the officer. Hearings on that model simply cannot be held at this scale," he said.

"The objective of the whole exercise is to ensure that not a single eligible elector is left out of the rolls and no ineligible voter is included. The outcome of the exercise should inspire confidence in the electors and none should be omitted from the rolls for want of time or opportunity to establish his/her eligibility," Reddy said. 

The enumeration phase of voters concluded on August 10 and the draft electoral rolls were published on August 17. The notice phase too began on the latter date with the period for disposal of claims and objections up to October 15, four days before the publication of final rolls. 

The draft rolls were published with 2.65 crore electors, of whom 92.86 lakh were isolated for issue of notices.

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