Officials apologise for names bungle in Telangana

Hyderabad: In the wake of thousands of names going missing from official voter lists across Telangana, sparking sit-in protests in some constituencies, Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar has tendered an apology and promised to take corrective measures.

While a large number of names of voters going missing is a regular phenomenon in India, this time the uproar in Telangana was louder as many VIPs also joined the protest.

“We have to rectify the mistakes before the 2019 polls,” he said announcing that a summary revision of the electoral rolls will be taken up from January 1.

There was a raging controversy over the electoral list in Telangana over the last few months, as elections were advanced and the revision of lists planned from January 1 could not be taken up. After a hue and cry by the opposition the list was revised, taking the number of registered voters up from 26.1 million to 28.1 million.

Rajat said many well known people also called him to ask why their names were missing.

One of them Krishna Prasad, an IPS officer, was among the voters angry over being robbed of their rights.

Prasad, Director General of Road Safety Authority said that he was told at the polling station that his name was not on the list, although he had a voter ID issued by the Election Commission and he had verified it.

“I returned home dejected. My right to vote has been denied, thanks to the Election Commission,” he said.

The elections chief ordered a probe into the complaint by famous badminton star Jwala Gutta that her name was also missing.

Former minister Marri Shashidhar Reddy, who had moved the High Court against the alleged massive deletion of names from the voters’ list said that he was vindicated. He had complained to the High Court that names of 6.8 million voters were deleted throughout the state.

Comparing the Election Commission to Dhritrashtra, the blind king of Mahabharata, he said, “Democracy is being disrobed like Draupadi”.