27 lakh ‘uncollectible’. Draft when?
Telangana’s voter roll clean-up has flagged roughly 27.7 lakh electors as dead, shifted, absent or duplicated, the CEO has said on record. The Election Commission’s own timetable online doesn’t match the dates local officials and reports are quoting. Pick one, gentlemen.
The voter-roll revision now has more than one public timetable.
The scale first: around 27 lakh Telangana electors have been flagged “uncollectible” during the Special Intensive Revision — 7.28 lakh marked dead, 1.38 lakh untraceable or absent, 14.85 lakh permanently shifted and about 4 lakh already enrolled elsewhere, according to Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudarshan Reddy’s figures reported on July 27. Another report earlier in the drive put the statewide tally above 13.34 lakh; Hyderabad district alone has tagged 11,52,613 as absent/shifted/dead across 15 constituencies, a full 24.33% of its 47,36,669 electors, the district election officer said.
What this is not: a mass deletion done and dusted. The CEO has already said only those who filled the SIR enumeration form would show up in the draft rolls, and voters missing from the draft can still apply with Form 6. Hyderabad officials also said final numbers would settle after the enumeration window closed.
What should be simple is the calendar. The Election Commission’s published schedule for Telangana says house-to-house visits ran June 25–July 24, the draft roll was due July 31 with claims till August 30, and the final roll October 1. Local officials and reports, meanwhile, have talked up an extension into August and a draft on August 10. If the dates were officially revised, the ECI’s own page hasn’t caught up — and the Commission requires the CEO to publish drafts, claims lists and orders on the CEO’s site.
That gap matters more than the press lines, because this roll will decide who gets to vote in the next set of elections. The BJP-led Centre is fond of lecturing states on process; it can start by keeping its own election timetable consistent in public. Telangana voters can do their part: check the draft when it’s actually published, and file Form 6 if you’re missing — assuming the Commission can tell you which date to believe.