Telangana Congress to protest against ECI’s SIR handling on September 28

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president B. Mahesh Kumar Goud said the Congress would organise protests at all district headquarters across the State on Monday (September 28) against what he described as the Election Commission of India’s (ECI) mishandling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise.

Mr. Goud demanded that the ECI publicly clarify the objections reportedly raised by two Election Commissioners over various aspects of the SIR of electoral rolls. He said the Commission’s functioning should be transparent and accountable.

Referring to reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had raised objections on 14 occasions over the past 10 months on issues relating to electoral roll revision, he said the objections covered registration of new voters, deletion of names, maintenance of voter databases and electoral roll software, and lakhs of people in Telangana faced these problems.

The TPCC president said the reported objections to the changes proposed in Form 6, used by citizens seeking voter registration, required a detailed explanation from the ECI. He wanted the Commission to clarify the legal basis for the changes and explain the process followed in making them.

He also sought details on the role and responsibility of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) in making changes to voter data. “Who changed the data, when, for what reason and with whose approval” should be ascertainable through an audit trail, he said.

The TPCC chief also demanded that the ECI publish State-wise and constituency-wise details of names deleted from draft electoral rolls during the SIR process, the reasons for such deletions, the number of objections received, and the number of names subsequently restored.

He said that Congress had been raising concerns over the functioning of the ECI and claimed that the reported objections from two Election Commissioners had strengthened the party’s concerns.