HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition filed by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) over alleged irregularities in the Jubilee Hills voters’ list, noting that the Election Commission of India (ECI) had already initiated an inquiry.
A division bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin said voter registration and deletion is a continuous process and that the ECI has time till October 21 to act on the complaints. The bench added that courts should avoid interfering in the electoral process once the poll schedule is announced, as any intervention could delay elections.
The plea, filed as a lunch motion by BRS working president KT Rama Rao and party candidate Maganti Sunitha, alleged large-scale inclusion of bogus and non-resident voters. Senior advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu argued that nearly 12,000 fake entries were found in the list and that complaints lodged with the ECI on October 13 and 14 had not been addressed.
Appearing for the ECI, senior advocate Avinash Desai said verification was already underway and that the claim of 12,000 bogus votes was unfounded. He said 6,976 new names were added and 663 deleted during the revision process, bringing the total to 3.99 lakh voters in the final list published on September 30.
After hearing both sides, the court held that the petitioners had approached it prematurely and found no ground for interference. The bench directed the ECI to continue its verification and take necessary action before the October 21 deadline.
Randomisation of evm's, vvpats completed
The first randomisation of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) for the Jubilee Hills byelection has been completed, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) C Sudharshan Reddy announced on Wednesday.
The randomisation was conducted through the EVM Management System (EMS) by the District Election Officer, Hyderabad, in the presence of representatives from recognised political parties. There are a total of 407 polling stations in the segment, for which 569 Ballot Units (BUs), 569
Control Units (CUs) and 610 VVPATs have been allotted, the CEO informed. He said the constituency-wise lists of randomised machines were shared with the representatives of political parties at the district headquarters. All EVMs and VVPATs have been placed in the designated strongroom and it has been sealed in the presence of representatives of recognised political parties.
