Aadhaar, EPIC link spurs row

Hyderabad: The seeding of Voter ID cards (EPIC) with Aadhaar on a war footing in the city ahead of the GHMC elections has taken political overtones.

Though the Election Commission has asked officials to take up the seeding process in all the districts, it is being done on a priority basis only in GHMC limits. From April 13, EC officials will take up door-to-door physical verification of voters in GHMC limits and will ask for photocopies of voter ID cards and Aadhaar. The exercise will go on till April 18.

Voters are now worried that their GHMC vote will be cancelled if during verification, it is seen that also have votes in Andhra Pradesh. The Aadhaar-EPIC seeding will enable officials to identify and remove bogus votes.

Many in 2014 polls had voted in both states

One can have only one Aadhaar UID number though he/she may have two or three EPICs at different locations. But once the Aadhaar number is linked to one EPIC, linkage with other EPICs will be rejected.

This assumes significance in the with TRS party leaders complaining to the EC that over four lakh voters in the city have dual votes, in AP and TS, and these duplicate votes had affected the outcome in the 2014 general polls.

TRS leaders fear the same would be repeated in the ensuing GHMC polls as AP voters will vote for the TD. There were 74,66,000 votes in the GHMC area three months before the polls, in April 2014, which increased by 6.76 lakhs to 81,42,027 by polling day. Reports showed evidence of voters voting in Hyderabad on April 30, only to return to their native places in AP to vote again on May 7.

TS, AP Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal ruled out removal of votes in GHMC limits automatically if found they had votes in AP.