HYDERABAD: The High Court on Friday made it clear that the final list of voters being published by the Election Commission for the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency would be subject to further orders on the petition filed challenging the process adopted by the local officers for revision of rolls in Greater Hyderabad.Justice Challa Kodanda Ram was dealing with the petition filed by Ponnam Venkata Ramana, a BJYM leader and resident of the city, alleging that Nazari Naksha map (showing the boundaries of area falling under each polling station) with GHMC door numbers were not given prior to the process of finalising the rolls.
The petitioner’s counsel pointed out that the said work was entrusted to a private agency which engaged untrained and semi-literate persons for doing intensive revision of electoral rolls. The names of thousands of voters, whom the ruling party perceived to be not in its favour, were deleted arbitrarily in the old city. The Nazari Naksha map for each polling station area with door numbers was not provided to the political parties to cross-check the draft rolls.
If the map for each polling station area with the door numbers allotted by GHMC was not made available, then the voter lists prepared arbitrarily would become final. Representations on this were sent to the Election Commission of India, he pointed out.The counsel urged the court to direct the authorities concerned not to publish the final list of voters for the Assembly segments of the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency and to receive objections which would be filed after Nazari Naksha was made available to political parties.
While refusing to pass an interim order, the judge directed the Election Commission of India and the chief electoral officer of Telangana to file their counter affidavits. While adjourning the case by four weeks, he made it clear that the publication of voters list, if any, would be subject to further orders of the court.