EC flags 88 lakh; ‘six lakh Hyderabad’ is a claim
SIR is using the 2002 roll as the base. Telangana’s CEO says anomalies get notices and hearings — not instant deletions. The “over six lakh in Hyderabad” number is reported by one outlet and not backed by an official table.
A flagged record is not the same as a deleted vote.
Telangana’s voter roll clean-up is big, and documented; the scariest Hyderabad number doing the rounds is not. According to reports quoting CEO C. Sudarshan Reddy, pre-SIR mapping flagged about 88–90 lakh elector records statewide after matching roughly 2.38 crore mapped voters with the 2002 electoral roll base. The CEO has said minor anomalies will draw notices and hearings, with documents examined before clearing electors. In plain words: a flag is not a deletion.
The Election Commission’s own SIR portal and schedule confirm the baseline is the 2002/2003 roll, with January 1, 2002 as the last intensive revision’s qualifying date. That supports the method, not the panic.
What is not on the record is the headline-friendly “over six lakh Hyderabad voters” set to get anomaly notices. That figure appears in a single report without an official Hyderabad-wise count, geography definition or category breakup. Treat it as a claim until the CEO’s office or the Hyderabad DEO publishes the numbers.
For voters, the practical bit is dull but useful: check your status, answer a notice if you get one, and carry documents. For parties itching to spin this into a purge or a conspiracy, the record so far is boringly procedural — and it stays that way unless the Congress government here or the BJP-led Centre decides to make theatre out of a database check.