17 lakh names deleted from electoral rolls: Cong

Party leaders Bhatti Vikramarka and Danam Nagender accuse GHMC Commissioner of acting at the behest of the government

Hyderabad: Senior Telangana Congress leaders and former Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka and former Minister Danam Nagender on Friday warned the ruling TRS government of agitation if it failed to desist from acts of conspiracy of removing the names of the voters from the Hyderabad city electoral rolls.

Addressing the media, after submitting a memorandum to the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Banwar Lal, here on Friday, they alleged that the Grater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) Commissioner Somesh Kumar had been resorting to illegally deleting the names of voters from the electoral rolls of Hyderabad because of the suspicion that they may not vote for the ruling TRS party.

“To be in the good looks of the ruling party, the Commissioner has been resorting to illegally removing the names suo motto without even issuing notices,” they alleged, and demanded that the CEO immediately recommend transfer of Somesh Kumar, who has in fact been assigned to Andhra Pradesh.

The Congress leaders claimed that names of about 17 lakh voters, mostly settlers from Seemandhra, and other places, had been removed on one or the other pretext. The GHMC Commissioner, they said, had not been following procedure in deleting the names from the electoral rolls. It was a systematic conspiracy, they said.

Citing an example, the Congress leaders told to Banwar Lal that in Sanathnagar Assembly Constituency alone, “out of 82,655 names of voters shown as “shifted,” only 11,585 people were served with notices and out of 59,921 names of voters shown as “door locked,” only 9,125 people were served with notices,” they said.

Claiming the veracity of even these figures, about the notices issued is highly susceptible and exposes the clear intent of the State government, they pointed out.Nagendra said that the government was forced to notify elections for the GHMC following a direction from the High Court to complete the process by December.

However, it was trying to subvert the electoral process by systematically deleting the names of the voters to win the elections. He said that the CEO had promised to provide a hard copy of the deleted names. Once the hard copy was provided to use, they said, they would verify names in each division. They threatened to approach the court for justice and ensure that free and fair elections are conducted.

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