Congress alleges discrepancies in Telangana voters list

After Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the Congress on Sunday alleged discrepancies in the voter list of Telangana and demanded that the Election Commission take immediate steps to sanitise the same.

Addressing a press conference here, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi and Telangana leader Shashidhar Reddy claimed that as many as 20 lakh voters have found their names missing from the electoral rolls.

They claimed that the electoral rolls had 30.13 lakh duplicated voters, while another 18 lakh voters found their names in the lists of both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

“The Congress party demands that a thorough process of verification and sanitisation of these voter rolls should be initiated before any elections are announced,” Singhvi told reporters here.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced the dissolution of the state Assembly on September 6 paving the way for snap polls in the state.

"Any election held on the basis of these deeply and deliberately flawed and inaccurate voter list would undermine the entire process and would lead to a distorted mandate,” Singhvi said.

The Election Commission had found 24 lakh duplicate voters in the electoral rolls of Madhya Pradesh after a verification process was carried out at the behest of the Congress.

The Congress had raised similar doubts about the voter list in Rajasthan.

Singhvi also accused the outgoing Chief Minister of Telangana of sacrificing the integrity of the elections for the sake of petty political ambitions. “Did the KCR government dissolve the Telangana Assembly prematurely to swing elections in their favour by manipulating 70 lakh votes through contamination of the voter list,” Singhvi asked.

Rao, who rushed to announce the dates for the Telangana Assembly elections, has deliberately chosen to ignore the numerous discrepancies in the voter list, which disenfranchise lakhs of eligible voters, he alleged.