Telangana SIR | Over two lakh voters receive notices, without reason mentioned in constituency-wise anomalies list

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Booth Level Officers (BLO), Booth Level Agents (BLAs) contacting people over phone asking for documents to be submitted in response to notices issued as part of Special Intensive Revision, in Sangareddy, Telangana. File | Photo Credit: MOHD ARIF

Over two lakh voters in Telangana have been sent notices, which have no reason mentioned in the constituency-wise list of electors with anomalies. Recipients of these notices are specifically 35 years old or older, raising questions of whether a separate category has been created.

According to an analysis of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) data — including various lists issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) — by Sabar Institute and Constitutional Guardians Forum, the pattern raises concerns over two aspects: if electors receive notices with no reason mentioned, what charge will they respond to, and whether information mentioned on the notice matched with the lists issued. Second, with such notices being sent to those 35 years of age or older, a rule has been applied across booths which has led to issuing of these notices.

All lists should match with each other, said lead researcher Sabir Ahamed. “On the one hand, if the constituency-wise list of anomalies contains an empty cell under reason for issuing notice, but the notice that has been sent to the elector does mention a reason, this too is a problem. This means that there is a gap in coordination and matching of list with notices served, especially as regards the reason,” he explained

“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.

Every row in these lists has a column called “Reason for discrepancy”. For 2,01,249 voters, that box is empty. The person’s name, age, gender and voter ID are printed, but the space where the problem should be written has nothing in it.

“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,” said Sabir Ahamed, lead researcher, Sabar Institute.

Should the EC take action against those filing forms for mass deletions?

Telangana SIR: 8.38 lakh claims, objections received by ECI so far

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