Congress Alleges Deliberate Manipulation in Telangana Voters List

New Delhi: Accusing the Telangana government of trying to vitiate the upcoming Assembly polls by “manipulating voters lists”, the Congress on Sunday demanded the Election Commissions (EC) intervention for verification and sanitization of electoral rolls. Alleging that as many as 70 lakh names in the electoral lists have been manipulated, Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi wondered if the “contamination of the voter lists” was the reason behind the K. Chandrashekhar Rao government prematurely dissolving the Telangana Assembly in order to swing elections in their favor.

“Rao rushed to announce the dates for the Telangana Assembly elections and deliberately chose to ignore the numerous discrepancies in the voter lists which disenfranchise lakhs of eligible voters and completely erode the integrity of the elections, whenever they are conducted,” Singhvi told the media here. “It is clear that the caretaker Chief Minister of Telangana is sacrificing the integrity of the elections for the sake of his petty political ambitions.”

Singhvi said that an inquiry by the party has revealed that at least 30.13 lakh duplicate voters exist on the electoral rolls published by the Election Commission on September 10. He also said that close to 20 lakh voters in Telangana have been deleted from the rolls between 2014 and 2018. Pointing out further discrepancies in the electoral rolls, the Congress leader claimed that close to 18 lakh names featured in both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana electoral rolls. He asserted that the elections held on the basis of the “deeply and deliberately flawed and inaccurate” voter lists would undermine the entire process and lead to a distorted mandate. (IANS)