Six-fold ‘absent’ gap, one unanswered election question
An analysis of Election Commission lists reports a sharp difference between Hyderabad’s Charminar and Malakpet. The official files and the administration’s explanation are still missing.
The constituency-level files and verification trail remain unpublished.
An analysis of Election Commission lists reports that the share of electors marked “absent” was nearly six times higher in Charminar than in neighbouring Malakpet during the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. The number is striking. The paperwork behind it is less forthcoming.
The analysis by Siasat.com says 36,086 of Charminar’s 94,174 names left off the draft roll were marked “absent” — 38.3%. In Malakpet, it reports 9,646 of 1,47,799 flagged names in that category — 6.5%. The Malakpet list also included 1,20,365 marked shifted, 10,472 dead and 7,316 duplicate. The draft roll was published on August 17, 2026, according to the report.
The Election Commission says unreturned enumeration forms can lead to voters being placed in the ASDD categories: Absent, Shifted, Dead or Duplicate. But the official constituency-level files, the verification protocol and the Hyderabad election administration’s explanation for the gap have not been published in the material reviewed. The Commission has supplied the acronym; it has not yet supplied the audit trail. Telangana’s voters are left with the six-fold difference and an institutionally sized silence.