Hyderabad, Nov 3 Telangana Voter Rights Forum (TVRF), a civil society platform, on Tuesday demanded that the SIR exercise be completely rolled back and CEC Gyanesh Kumar resign.
TVRF said it has conducted a “social audit of SIR process and public hearings” here during October, directly meeting hundreds of voters which showed the alleged fundamental flaws in the exercise.
Economist and political analyst Parakala Prabhakar, who was a jury member at a public hearing, questioned the comments of Union Home Minister Amit Shah about three crore foreign infiltrators in the country.
Prabhakar said that if that is really true, the government should be able to give state-wise and constituency-wise details of these infiltrators, the TVRF said in a release.
Prabhakar, husband of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, alleged that the government is wrongly stating that the SIR exercise has been conducted so many times in the past.
He claimed “this is the first time in the country that an SIR of this nature is being conducted where every voter is being asked to submit a form and being deleted if the form is not received”.
He demanded that the present SIR exercise should be completely scrapped, the release said.
The TVRF said detailed groundwork was carried out in Musheerabad and Secunderabad Cantonment assembly constituencies here as part of the ‘Social Audit and Public hearings’.
In the Secunderabad Cantonment constituency, the TVRF volunteers went door to door in two Booths with the draft voter list and the deleted voter list. Out of 757 voters who were directly surveyed, 232 were deleted by placing on the ASDD list, out of whom 43 were wrongful deletions. Another 383 voters received notices, the release alleged.
Official figures show that there were 1,829 voters in these two booths as per 2025 lists, out of which 721 got deleted and another 960 got notices, it claimed.
In the Musheerabad constituency, out of the 95 deleted voters surveyed, 42 were wrongfully deleted, it alleged.
“Hundreds of surveyed voters expressed anger and frustration at the SIR process,” the release said.
Kiran Vissa, a prominent activist, said the TVRF demands the Chief Electoral officer of Telangana address the “systemic problems of the SIR” and that the “flawed SIR rolls” cannot be used for the upcoming Hyderabad municipal elections.
Fresh rolls should be prepared based on 2025 rolls, he said.
The TVRF’s demands include rolling back SIR, repealing the 2025 SIR guidelines, the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar and repealing of 2023 Chief Election Commission Act, the release added.
(PTI News)
