State Voter Enrolment Drive Initiated By Telangana CEO Rajat Kumar

Hyderabad: Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana Rajat Kumar responded to the missing of votes in the rolls, in the recently held elections in a meeting with representatives from the political parties. Rajat Kumar has handed over the 2015,2017, voters list, with the names that have been taken off the rolls to the district electoral officers. The names have been already uploaded in the official website, he added.

Voters, should check for their names in these lists and if they are not able to find them, they can get them enrolled by consulting the local Booth Level Officer (BLO), he informed.

As a part of the special amendments to voter lists started on 1 January 2019. On Tuesday, he held a meeting with the representatives from the registered political parties. He added, that on 20 January voter awareness campaign is going to be conducted all across the state. In the locations where the first phase of Panchayat polling is going to take place, this awareness program is going to take place on 23 January.

On that day BLO’s will available with voter list and applications for new voters will be accepted, along with that they also will accept any changes to be made to the model voter list, he added.

Rajat Kumar requested the political parties to heighten the awareness among the people to enroll as voters. Youths, physically handicapped, transgenders, women should be motivated to apply for voter registration, he added. Special arrangements are being made in the constituencies under GHMC, as many votes went missing, CEO added.

-The BLP’s are available on 9 to 11 January and 23 to 25 January in the evenings from 4 PM to 7 PM, to accept the new registrations and changes to be made.

-On 20 January which is the voter awareness campaign day, they are going to be present for the whole day in the booth locations.

- In GHMC limits, every ward will be provided with a computer operator, who will handle the new applications and changes to be made.

- From 8 to 25 January a drop box will be provided in all the prominent malls in the city, where the new applications will be accepted.

- All the ERO’s will visit the degree colleges under their limits and interact with the students to register as voters. ERO is also going to hand over voter applications to the principal as per requirement and set up a drop box in the college.

As the officials are caught up in the Panchayat election duties, the deadline to register voters and to consult for amendments should be extended, said Congress leader Marri Shahidhar Reddy and BJP MLC N Ramchander Rao.

In the past three years, many votes were taken off the list without any substantial reason and this is the reason behind the decline in voter turnouts in Hyderabad, added TRS MLC Srinivas Reddy. He demanded the BLO’s responsible for the act to be held liable for this major error. Another TRS leader Gattu Ramachandra Rao said it is because of this indiscriminate deletion of votes that TRS lost its majority in the recently held elections.

Also Read: Telangana Polls: Record Voter Turnout Of 73.20%