More than 7,000 duplicate entries have been removed from the draft electoral rolls for the Hyderabad district in the run-up to the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the notification for which is expected shortly.
A total of 15,000 entries with duplicates have come to the notice of the electoral officials in all the 15 Assembly segments during the procedure to revise the rolls post Assembly elections held last December. The procedure involved sifting through the rolls for same names and identities appearing twice or thrice within the limits of the same constituency.
“We have not taken any chances this time, and sent our people for ground verification of each name. Only after thorough inspection and confirmation of the voter concerned, we have removed the duplications while retaining the original entry,” said an official of GHMC officiating the election process for the city.
Scope for glitches
However, the process is not without its glitches. The rolls were pored over to ascertain double entries within each constituency, and not outside, informed the official.
Besides, double entries were identified only where the names exactly matched, without any deviation. Unidentified duplications may remain, for instance, with variations in the case (upper or lower) of the letters, and where first name in one entry appears as second name in the duplicated entry, or as mere initial. All such entries discovered henceforth will be noted in the ASD (Absent, Shifted, Deceased) list and be disenfranchised, the official said.
Discovery of such entries, however, is purely by chance, and most often happens when such a voter comes out voluntarily to complain. During Assembly elections, many voters had even received multiple Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPICs) with different numbers, at the same address.
Voters whose names had been deleted erroneously during the earlier Intensive Revision Of Electoral Rolls (IRER), enrolled themselves repeatedly over various electoral registration drives, and the system has failed to eliminate such repeat applications based on address. Minute deviations in names, father’s names and addresses made discovery of such applications difficult.
In Hyderabad alone, more than 2,000 such cases were discovered where more than one EPIC was sent to a single voter, the officer said. Duplicate EPICs have been confiscated from such voters.
Over 82,000 EPICs of those who enrolled for Assembly polls are yet to be sent to their respective addresses, the officer informed, blaming it on delay in printing. They will be sent soon, along with EPICs of freshly enrolled voters.
The revised number of voters stands at close to 41 lakh in the 15 Assembly segments, constituting Secunderabad and Hyderabad parliamentary constituencies, and part of Malkajgiri. The final list will be published on February 22.