Two lakh duplicate and 44,000 dead voters struck off Telangana’s list

HYDERABAD: As many as 44,721 names of deceased voters and two lakh duplicate voters were deleted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) during the special summary revision of voters in Telangana in the past four months. At the same time, around 17.7 lakh new voters including 6 lakh first-time voters were added taking the total number of electors in the state to 2.95 crore.

During the state polls, deletion of votes and duplicate voters stirred a huge controversy and the election commission faced flak from political parties and the general public on the issue. Following this, ECI carried out a fresh ground verification at booth level and published electoral rolls again after eliminating the anomalies.

Speaking to TOI, Telangana Chief Electoral Officer Dr Rajat Kumar said: “During the revision of electors before Telangana Assembly elections, we deleted the names of around 3 lakh dead voters. It is unlikely that dead voters can be impersonated. There are around six lakh first-time young voters in the age between 18 years to 19 years who have registered themselves as voters.”

The gender ratio has increased to 989 women voters for every 1000 male voters as against 982 women previously. Regarding corrections, 1.8 lakh were corrected while around 1.9 lakh people shifted their votes.

According to experts, some of these figures could be defective as the projected population varies from urban region to rural constituencies. They say that in rural and tribal constituencies like Badrachalam, which do not witness incoming migration, the projected population will not grow as fast as in urban constituencies like Rajendranagar and Serilingmaplly which are being rapidly urbanised.