EC flags 89.88 lakh records. Panic optional
Ahead of Telangana’s Special Intensive Revision, election officials say 89.88 lakh elector records need verification — mismatches, missing docs, not automatic deletions. Congress says protect genuine voters. The BJP and TDP, as usual, prefer outrage over arithmetic.
Officials say flagged records require verification, not automatic deletion.
Telangana’s electoral rolls have thrown up a large homework pile, not a bonfire: about 89.88 lakh elector entries showed anomalies in a pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) mapping against the 2002 rolls, according to reports citing the state election office. These are data mismatches and missing documents, officials say — triggers for field checks, not proof of fake voters.
What counts as an anomaly here is prosaic: a parent’s name spelt differently, a relationship field changed, age discrepancies, or records where only Aadhaar was uploaded without the prescribed proofs. Election officials say the mapping flags entries for booth-level verification; it does not delete names en masse.
The SIR is now running with BLO visits and standard claims-and-objections. The CEO has also underlined that eligible voters who find themselves off a draft can apply for inclusion — Form 6 remains the route back in.
The Congress government in Telangana has told its own workers to make sure no eligible voter is knocked out in the process — a sensible instruction, and one the process already anticipates if people use the forms and deadlines. Meanwhile, national players who treat any large number as a conspiracy theory can start with the basics: flagged-for-check is not the same as struck-off. That difference is the entire story.