Congress Sniffs Conspiracy in as Voters Go Missing in List

HYDERABAD:  Alleging that the GHMC, which also serves as the district election commission, was hatching a conspiracy in collusion with the ruling party, senior Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy expressed fears of an ‘unfair’ election to the civic body.

Shashidhar Reddy, former mayor B Karthika Reddy along with other Congress leaders called on State Election Commissioner Nagi Reddy on Thursday. Reddy alleged that no corrective measures were taken by the Election Commission, even after repeated representations, to set things in order with regard to deletion of names done ‘arbitrarily.’

Reddy has been alleging that the TRS government had identified voters, who would vote against the ruling party in civic body polls, and eliminated them on the pretext of ‘door-locked’ and ‘shifted’ cases.

As many as 17,40,284 voters in Hyderabad and 1,31,135 in Sanathnagar, were deleted on the account of door-locked and shifted cases, he added questioning the veracity of exercise.

“It’s a devious scheme of the TRS party to identify voters from settlers, North Indian and Muslim minority communities, set to vote against the ruling party. In fact, several surveys have predicted a defeat for TRS in GHMC polls,” he said.

Questioning Election Commission’s apathy in uploading names of voters deleted from the electoral rolls, even after repeated representations, he informed that the government was directed by the HC to prepare ground for GHMC polls by October 31.

According to the State Election Commission, the ward-wise photo electoral rolls would be published on October 9 and as directed by the High Court, the State government should complete the ground work for conduct of civic body polls by October 31 and conduct elections by December 15.

“Since the list would be out only on October 9, there would not any time to go in for revision of electoral rolls after that. Even in a normal course, it would not be possible to do a revision in such a limited time,” he warned.