Hyderabad: Many in city yet to receive voter information slips

Hyderabad : With the Lok Sabha elections to be held on Monday, many electors complained about the door-to-door distribution of voter information slips (VIS) missing in several divisions of Hyderabad district. A majority of them allege that even in the Assembly polls they did not receive slips. The distribution of voter slips was initiated on April 28, yet many don’t have them.

Only three days are left for the Parliament elections. Several voters in almost all city divisions confirm that they did not receive voter slips. While some said they downloaded the voter slip from the website of Telangana State Election Commission, many might skip voting with lack of slips. They allege that despite several complaints to the booth level officers and other election officials at the concerned office, they failed to receive the voter slips.

However, the election authorities who instructed the concerned officers to complete the task before polls failed to distribute VIS. Residents of Mallepally, complain that in their locality of around 50 houses, none from the election office or the GHMC had knocked on their doors and distributed slips. Similarly, there are several such voters in localities and even in gated communities throughout the city who are yet to get slips.

Yuvraj Kamble of Mallepally said “Earlier, we voters used to receive the slips from party leaders, but since the recent Assembly elections and now upcoming LS polls, there are no voter slips with us. Due to this we have skipped voting in the Assembly elections,” he added.

Social activists allege that as electors don’t receive the voter slips, there would be a large effect on voting percentage in the elections. “The election authorities have been creating awareness among voters to vote and increase voting percentage, but failed to distribute slips,” said activists Asif Hussain Sohail.

He pointed out that “in the recent Assembly elections those who went to vote without slips were sent back as there was no VIS with them. This might also be a reason for affecting the polling percentage.”

Asif alleged that hardly 60% people received voter slips; the remaining are yet to get them. Yet election authorities and political parties are ensuring to get the percentage to increase.

A large number of people may not access online to download slips. Educated people are able to download the slips using different modes. However, others don’t make extra effort to get the slips. They may skip voting if they don’t get the slips, says Shujath Ahmed of Tolichowki.

Mohammed Ahmed, an activist in the Old City, alleges that hardly 30% of voters received the slips. “There is no proper distribution of crucial voter slips in the Old City. As a couple of days are left for polling they may not complete the task. The election authorities claim the slips have been distributed, but they are with political leaders; they are distributing as per their preference in the Old City divisions,” he alleges.