Hyderabad: ‘Singapore’, ‘For Pakistan’, ‘Slingshot’, ‘Cockatoo’, ‘Cashew Lizard’, ‘Big foot’, and ‘Goat’s Nest’, it turns out, are nonsensical words and phrases representing polling stations from the SIR 2002 rolls that are listed on the Election Commission website and being used to map residents in Telangana.When TOI scanned the electoral rolls, it found extensive use of such words and phrases: ‘for vegetarian’, ‘a new students’, ‘johncompete’, ‘find the pumpkin’, ‘among the monkeys’ and ‘while sleeping’, to name a few. And it was recurring across all erstwhile districts of Telangana.With the pre-special intensive revision (SIR) process underway in the state, voters complained how these “preposterous” names of polling stations have made it extremely challenging for them to scan the SIR e-roll to check if their names — or that of their parents and grandparents — are on the list being used for mapping.“I struggled for a week to find my name in the 2002 electoral roll, under Chevella constituency. When I saw the polling station names, I was shocked. I couldn’t recognise many of them despite living in the city since the age of 14,” said Satya Narayana, a resident of Ranga Reddy district. “They hardly make any sense. How does the Election Commission expect us to cooperate when the list they prepared is full of mistakes,” he asked.Ajay R, a voter from Wardhannapet constituency, shared how he encountered words like ‘lazy’, ‘bite’ and ‘worry’ during his search. “I don’t understand how officials assumed that these could be polling station names. This shows that they did no due diligence while preparing the electoral rolls. It’s unfortunate that they are now using it to sanitise electoral rolls in the country,” said the voter, who was a minor in 2002.Incidentally, some of the Electoral Registration Officers (ERO) TOI spoke to were themselves shocked to learn about these errors. They said they’d look into the rolls to identify such errors and bring them to the notice of the Election Commission for deletion. “Booth-level officers will have to inform us if such errors are found. So far no such issue has been flagged to us in the pre-SIR process,” said K Partha Simha Reddy, ERO, Chevella constituency.Telangana chief electoral officer (CEO) C Sudharshan Reddy, meanwhile, refused to comment on the issue.
