1.50 crore voters missing in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad: A staggering 1.50 crore voters are missing in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the Aadhaar-Elector’s Photo Identity Card (EPIC) linkage even after taking up booth-level and door-to-door verification of voters several times.

As a last resort, the Election Commission has decided to verify the voters’ lists again to trace these missing voters, besides sending SMS to all.

If there is still no response, these EPIC cards are likely to be cancelled by July 4.

Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts alone account for 40 lakh missing voters, far more than other districts.

Officials say several voters have EPICs in their native places in other districts along with Hyderabad, where they are currently working or studying.

To weed out duplication, such voters will be considered only for those places where they currently reside.

Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal said, “The process of EPIC-Aadhaar linkage is still going on. As of now, 63 per cent linkage in Telangana and 73 per cent in Andhra Pradesh has been completed. We are aiming to complete 100 per cent linkage by August 15. In case of missing voters too, we are not acting in haste to remove them from the voters’ list. Repeated rounds of physical verifications are being done before cancelling them.”

However, Mr Lal assured that such voters can apply for fresh EPIC cards online if they feel that their name was deleted without any valid reason. But they should ensure that they don't possess a voter card of any other location.

Mr Lal said the EPIC-Aadhaar linkage has exposed large-scale duplication of voters having cards in multiple locations.

In Hyderabad and RR districts, there are a total of 95.8 lakh voters. But during field-level verification, officials could not trace 39.85 lakh voters.

Of them 23.20 lakh voters have shifted to other areas in the city, resulting in change of constituencies.

Another 16.50 lakh voters could not be traced as their houses were found to be locked despite several visits.