HYDERABAD: AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday urged the state government to immediately issue Permanent Residence Certificates (PRCs), arguing that several poor residents lack documents required for submission during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.
Addressing a meeting here, the Hyderabad MP said that “SIR is not an inclusive exercise, but an exclusion one”.
Stating that PRCs should be accepted as valid documents for voter verification, he questioned why the Congress government in Telangana had not adopted the model followed in Karnataka, where the same party is in power.
Owaisi also asked why the two BJP MPs from Telangana, who are also Union ministers, had not convinced the Election Commission of India to accept alternative documents such as PAN cards, driving licences and food security cards.
Accusing the state government of being out of touch with the realities faced by the poor, Owaisi said many eligible voters do not possess the prescribed documents and warned that the government should not wait until names are deleted from the electoral rolls before taking action.
“If there is a conspiracy, the solution is to issue Permanent Residence Certificates,” he said, adding that the Congress government had so far confined itself to holding meetings despite repeated representations from his party.
He urged the government to ensure that no resident is deprived of voting rights due to the lack of residency documents.
Claiming that his party receives 50 to 60 complaints every day from people who do not have the required documents, Owaisi cited data from five states to argue that economically weaker sections are disproportionately affected by documentation gaps.
According to Owaisi, if the survey of the five states was analysed, around 52 per cent of the poor do not possess birth certificates, 42 per cent lack caste certificates and another 41 per cent do not have domicile certificates. In contrast, he said, 82.3 per cent of children from affluent families possess birth certificates, highlighting what he described as a stark disparity in access to essential documents.
The AIMIM chief also targeted the BRS, saying that as the principal Opposition party, which was in power for a decade, it should take up the issue with the ECI. He urged the party to seek the acceptance of alternative documents, pointing out that three of the 12 documents prescribed for voter verification are not commonly available to many people in Telangana.
