Telangana High Court refuses to freeze, withhold Munugode voters’ list

HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Thursday declined to direct the Election Commission to withhold the declaration of the electoral list or freeze the voters’ list up to August 2022 for the Munugode by-election, which is scheduled for Friday, as requested in a plea filed by the BJP’s state unit.

The petition, filed by Gujjala Venkata Krishna Reddy, the BJP’s Telangana state general secretary, sought the direction, alleging that the ruling party pressurised the authorities concerned to enrol 24,781 voters in 70 days since August 1, whereas only 1,000 applications had been received in the seven months since the year beginning.

Further, the petition contended that the lumpsum applications were a part of the ruling party’s tactic to win the by-election illegally through bogus votes.

However, the division bench, comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice C.V. Bhaskar Reddy, observed that the deletion, addition and correction of the voters’ list is an ongoing process and at this stage — when the election is scheduled to be held on November 3 — the court cannot issue a direction to either freeze the voters’ list or direct the Election Commission not to declare the voters’ list.

In the course of the proceedings, the counsel for the petitioner, B. Rachna Reddy, said that an RTI application revealed that 24,781 new voters signed up as new voters. She contended that the publication of the list would leave no scope for further scrutiny of the applicants.

Meanwhile, the standing counsel for the Election Commission of India, Avinash Desai, told the court that of the around 25,000 new applications, 7,000 were rejected and 12,000 were included in the voters’ list. Further, he contended that the plea to freeze the voters’ list up to August 2022 is contrary to the statutory provisions of the Representation of the People Act.

At the outset, Desai told the court that the petition was not maintainable as the process of the voters’ list will continue till the last date of nomination.

After the arguments by both sides, the court directed the ECI to furnish the details of voters from 2019, when elections were last held, and the new additions over the past two months.

The court also issued notices to the secretary of the ECI, State Election Commission, Telangana chief secretary, secretary of the general administrative department and the district election officer or collector of Nalgonda, seeking their responses. The case was adjourned to Friday.