The political landscape of Telangana has been plunged into confusion following the deletion of 73.3 lakhs voters, amounting to approximately 21.7 percent of total voters, from the draft electoral list under the process of Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The number is huge, even though the names are not finally struck off yet.
The magnitude of this operation has raised many political queries. Leaders of Congress party have charged the party ministers and constituency-level officials for not providing enough supervision to this process. Also, chief minister A.
Revanth Reddy has warned Congress party leaders about being careful and ensuring that real voters should not be deprived of voting. Moreover, he has charged BJP and BRS for gaining political advantages from this deletion a claim which has to be proved.
The Center under BJP-led government and Election Commission stand at the crossroads of trustworthiness. The Government of India insists on the fact that there are safeguards in the SIR, such as house-to-house verification, repeated efforts to contact untraceable voters, publication of draft rolls, claims and objections, and appeals against deletion on wrong grounds.
But when millions of voters are involved, process cannot replace trustworthiness and openness.
The entire issue gets even more relevant in light of the impending debate on delimitation and simultaneous elections. In case there is a complete revamp of Telangana’s electoral rolls prior to the redrawing of its constituencies, there may be serious political repercussions.
PV Kondal Rao’s caution regarding the changing political landscape of Telangana needs consideration at this point.
The fundamental question is straightforward yet provocative:
Is the SIR merely cleansing the electoral roll or are we looking at a complete revamp of Telangana’s political destiny prior to delimitation itself?
