Election Commission to check deletion of voters' names in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Bowing to the complaints lodged by the Congress, BJP and the Telugu Desam Party over alleged deletion of names of voters as being bogus, the Election Commission on Thursday ordered deputing a 14-member special audit team headed by the chief electoral officer of West Bengal for verification of the claims.

In a setback to chief electoral officer Bhanwarlal and GHMC special officer and district election authority Somesh Kumar, who have been claiming that the exercise of purification of the voters’ list had been done as per rules, the EC, acting on the complaints lodged by the Opposition, has decided to do a “check” before final publication of the voters’ list on November 4.

The Election Commission on Thursday ordered a special audit team headed by the chief electoral officer of West Bengal for verification of the deletion of several voters.

Opposition parties had even dubbed both Mr Bhanwar Lal and Mr Somesh Kumar as agents of the TRS government and accused them of acting as per the diktats of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. They had even demanded that both officers should be relieved from election-related duties.

It is not immediately known whether the 14-member team will visit few areas in city to verify the claims of political parties that genuine voters have been deleted from the list.

The orders of the Election Commission were received on Thursday evening. The team desires to have a meeting with all political parties on October 31 and accordingly it has been arranged at Dr MCR HRD Institute in the morning.

Mr Bhanwar Lal also asked the parties to depute only two members to attend the meeting.

When contacted, he said, “We have done the exercise (purification of voters’ list as ordered by EC in February 2015 across the nation) as per the rules and regulations and whatever we have done is the best in the country; anyway it is up to the EC to take any decision acting on the complaints received, we will cooperate with the audit team.”

In fact, the electors of Hyderabad district have already been advised that a special campaign day will be conducted on November 1 in all polling stations of the 15 Assembly Constituencies.

Voters have been informed that booth-level officers will be available in the respective polling station locations with copies of the draft electoral roll and forms 6,7,8 & 8A.

Electors were requested to avail the opportunity to verify their names in the electoral roll and also use the relevant forms for new inclusion of voters, change of address etc.