Telangana CEO flags morphed photographs, duplicate votes, death cases during SIR scrutiny

Telangana’s ongoing SIR exercise has flagged 1,100 electors for exclusion over morphed photographs, duplicate votes and death cases. Officials are scrutinising anomalies and unmapped voters, while notices have been issued to 61 lakh electors across all 119 Assembly constituencies.

Hyderabad: Electors who were found to have morphed their photographs during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls have been marked for deletion of their names from the final electoral rolls.

During the ongoing notice and hearing phase, electoral registration officers (EROs) have come across some voters using morphed photographs, thoroughly scrutinised the enumeration forms and marked them for rejection.

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As many as 1,100 electors from 119 Assembly constituencies have been found ineligible for their inclusion in the final electoral list till the last count on Wednesday. The Telangana Chief Electoral Office (TG CEO) sources attributed 1,100 electors’ exclusion from final roll to morphing photographs, duplicate votes and death cases.

“We have issued instructions to DEOs and EROs to take necessary action as per the Representation of the People Act against people who try to mislead or commit fraud during the SIR process,” sources said.

As many as 2,64,87,213 out of 3,38,26,448 electors in Telangana submitted their enumeration forms. A total of 73,39,235 electors were categorised under the Absent, Shifted, Death and Duplicate (ASDD) vote category.

Among those who submitted their forms, the Telangana CEO has identified issues in forms received from staggering 92,87,577 electors. A total of 60,50,918 electors have anomalies such as mismatch of name or age and spelling error in name and 32,36,659 voters failed to map themselves with the SIR 2002 list.

Notices have already been issued to 61 lakh voters across 119 Assembly constituencies, and 31 lakh notices were yet to be delivered to respective voters till the last count on Wednesday. So far, 18 lakh electors from across all assembly constituencies who have been served notices were marked for inclusion in the final electoral roll.

“We have asked the EROs, AEROs and BLOs to quickly dispose of the anomaly cases by verifying the documents. The unmapped voters will be thoroughly scrutinised,” sources added.

As per the revised schedule, electors and individuals can file claims and objections on the draft electoral rolls up to October 7. Similarly, the ongoing notice/disposal of claims and objections phase will continue till November 5. The final electoral rolls will be published on November 9.