HYDERABAD: According to the final voters list released by the State Election Commission, a resident of Serilingampally Assembly constituency named Shila, residing in house number 4-1191/2 in survey number 524, has been identified as the oldest person alive on the planet at the age of 123. Shila is one of the 118 voters in the constituency aged above 100, some of whom have modern names like Manasa (103), Swetha (102), Mamatha (103), Pavani (103), Swathi (101), Rupa (100), Mounika (102), and Sai Sreeja (103).
The total number of new voters who turned 18 and have enrolled between 2018 and 2022 to exercise their franchise was found to be around 800, which is just 0.12 per cent of the total 6,44,072 votes in the constituency.
Among the constituency’s voters, 15.215% are between 18 and 30 years of age, while approximately 1,200 voters do not have their fathers’ names mentioned in the records. The constituency has around 98,000 voters aged between 18 and 30.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Hyderabad district vice-president Ponna Venkat Ramana expressed concern over the low number of young voters and questioned the State Election Commission’s abnormal additions and deletions to the voter list.
The BJP also alleged that the votes of Backward Classes (BCs) and North Indians were deleted in GHMC divisions where they performed well in the last GHMC elections.
Despite 23,000 new voters enrolling since 2018, the number of voters has decreased from 6,61,000 in 2022 to 6,44,072 in January 2023, prompting the BJP to plan to take the issue to the Election Commission of India.