HOSUR: Unlike in the past, the share of non-native voters has surged past that of locals in the Hosur Assembly constituency after the delimitation exercise.
During delimitation, the traditional Telugu speaking areas have been ejected out of Hosur constituency and merged with the newly created Veppanapalli seat. As a result, the voters’ size has slipped by 26 per cent to 2.22 lakh in the electoral list prepared for the ensuing Assembly elections compared to 3.11 lakh voters in the last Assembly polls, when Hosur was one of the largest constituencies in the State.
Primarily 42 village panchayats, where the Telugu speaking native people were located for the past several decades, in Soolagiri panchayat union have been removed from Hosur constituency during the delimitation.
The existing areas of Hosur Municipality and Mathigiri town panchayat remains with Hosur constituency along with major panchayats like Sevaganapalli, Kagganur, Sokkarasanapalli, Singasadhanaplli, Belathur, Bebbalapuram, Deveerapalli, Baliganapalli and Edipalli.
In the past 25 years, people from other parts of the State and the country have migrated to Hosur in large numbers to work in more than 2,000 industrial units located here. Most of these migrant workers reside within Hosur Municipality and Mathigiri town panchayat limits. Around 88,000, who are natives of Hosur constituency, have now been moved to Veppanapalli constituency. This led to an increase in the share of outside voters. Earlier the share of native and non-native stood in the range of 75:25. But after delimitation, the share of outside voters has increased to 35-40 per cent, said a government teacher involved in preparing voter list, requesting anonymity.
Currently, Hosur segment comprises 1.16 lakh male and 1.06 lakh female voters. This sudden increase in share of non-native voters is expected to tilt the political balance in Hosur this time.
Originally Hosur was the headquarters of the erstwhile Salem district during British regime.