EC flags 90 lakh; clean, don’t cull
Telangana’s roll clean-up has flagged around 89.88 lakh entries for anomalies after mapping 2.38 crore voters to the 2002 list. Notices and hearings follow the draft roll — correction, not purge. The BJP-led Centre’s spin and Congress’s shadow-boxing can wait; the schedule and the CEO’s words are on record.
The revision schedule provides for verification, notices and hearings before the final roll.
Telangana’s Special Intensive Revision has identified around 89.88 lakh electors with anomalies after officials mapped about 2.38 crore entries to the last intensive revision (2002), according to the state Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudharshan Reddy. Telangana’s total registered voters were reported at 3.38 crore, with roughly 99.64 lakh unmapped at that stage. The instruction from the CEO is simple enough: cleanse the rolls, not delete genuine voters.
The Election Commission extended field enumeration to August 10, with the draft roll set for August 17 and claims/objections running to September 16. Disposal — where notices are issued and hearings held — runs through October 15 before the final roll on October 19. A notice means “fix this entry”, not “you’ve been struck off”. Save the melodrama for manifestos.
Two points for parties fishing in troubled waters. One, the CEO has said the exercise is to correct duplicates, deceased and long-term-migrated entries while keeping eligible voters on the list. Two, the Commission has clarified electors don’t have to furnish documents during enumeration; documents come into play only if an Electoral Registration Officer issues a post-draft notice to resolve a discrepancy. Translation: verification first, theatrics never.
The BRS has already asked for more time citing access to the 2002 roll; that’s a process ask, not a conspiracy theory. Meanwhile, the BJP’s line trying to tie this to sops or religion has been publicly rejected by its own Union minister from Telangana. When even the BJP-led Centre’s talking point doesn’t survive contact with the record, the Congress can sit this one out instead of discovering a new outrage. The calendar is public; the work is clerical; the politics is optional.