HYDERABAD: The BRS leaders and local residents staged a dharna in protest against the removal of voters' names from the electoral rolls ahead of the Secunderabad Cantonment Board elections. The protesters were led by BRS leaders and Telangana State Mineral Development Corporation (TSMDC) Chairman Manne Krishank. As the SCB elections are scheduled to be held on April 30, the voter registration process has already been completed.
Speaking during the protest, the TSMDC chairman said: “In ward No 2, names of around 15,000 voters have been removed from the electoral rolls. During the 2015 Cantonment Board elections, there were around 22,000 votes in this ward. Now, that number has been reduced to just 7,872.”
“In a democracy, your vote is of paramount importance. Your identity is lost if you have no right to vote. Poor people who have been living here for the last 50 to 60 years have been informed by the Cantonment Board officials that these lands belong to Defence and Airport authorities and hence their names have been deleted from the electoral rolls. We have knocked on the doors of High Court to get the names of these peoples included in the voters list,” he added.