Telangana Minister Ponnam challenges BJP State president to produce voters who lost voting rights

Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar has challenged BJP State president N. Ramchander Rao to specify a date and time for him to produce voters who claim to have lost their voting rights during the revision of electoral rolls, along with supporting documents.

In a statement, Mr. Prabhakar questioned Mr. Ramchander Rao’s remarks challenging those protesting against the deletion of votes to identify the affected voters. He said the BJP State president should facilitate the correction of errors in electoral rolls and help protect the voting rights of all eligible citizens, instead of questioning the protests.

“I challenge Mr. Ramchander Rao to announce a date and time. I will bring before him voters who have lost their voting rights, along with their supporting documents,” the Minister said, adding that the issue should be addressed by examining election records rather than resorting to arrests or dismissing the concerns of protesters.

Mr. Prabhakar alleged that the revision of electoral rolls had disproportionately affected voters belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and minority communities, particularly those opposed to the BJP.

He claimed that nearly 40 lakh votes had been lost in the State capital and 70 lakh across Telangana in the name of electoral roll revision. He also cited a figure of 13 crore deleted votes nationally, without providing supporting data in the statement.

The Minister demanded that the Election Commission disclose the number of votes deleted, how many belonged to ineligible voters, and whether eligible voters had been inadvertently removed from the rolls. He said the revision process should be transparent and impartial, with safeguards to ensure that no eligible citizen was deprived of the right to vote.

Mr. Prabhakar also referred to former Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu’s reported remarks in an interview on voter registration and the submission of supporting documents, and called for the issues raised in the interview to be examined.