Hyderabad: With only a week left for completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), election authorities have identified 48.3 lakh electors for deletion from Telangana’s voter rolls, accounting for 14.2% of the state’s 3.38 crore electorate. The number could rise further, with nearly 29.5 lakh enumeration forms yet to be digitised. The deadline for SIR exercise was extended from Aug 3 to Aug 10 on Friday eveningThe exercise has revealed a significant concentration of uncollectable forms in Hyderabad, Medchal Malkajgiri and Rangareddy districts, raising the possibility of large-scale deletions in the state’s urban belt.All 48.3 lakh electors identified for deletion fall under the category of uncollectable enumeration forms. The largest segment comprises 28.7 lakh electors, or 8.5% of the total electorate, who were found to have permanently shifted from their registered addresses.Another 8.6 lakh electors were reported dead, while around 4.8 lakh were classified as absent or untraceable. Nearly 5.8 lakh voters were identified as duplicate entries or persons already enrolled elsewhere.Chief electoral officer C Sudharshan Reddy told TOI that all uncollectable cases would be removed from the rolls as they fall under recognised deletion categories. “Most of them have shifted to other places,” he said.Enumeration forms were distributed to all 3.38 crore electors in the state. So far, election officials have digitised and verified about 2.6 crore forms, covering nearly 77% of the electorate.With 29.5 lakh forms still awaiting digitisation, officials are racing against time to complete verification. The final status of these electors will determine whether they remain on the rolls, are taken up for further verification, or are added to the deletion list.Apart from uncollectable forms, officials have also detected anomalies and ‘absent, shifted and dead’ (ASD) discrepancies in forms that were successfully collected and digitised. These cases will not be deleted immediately and will undergo an additional round of verification.“The anomalies and ASD discrepancies have been identified among the collected forms. Notices will be generated and issued in all such cases,” the chief electoral officer said.With the SIR entering its final phase, the focus is now on processing the remaining forms, a step that could significantly alter the final number of electors proposed for deletion from Telangana’s voter rolls.
