Telangana Congress protests seek CEC's resignation over SIR of electoral rolls

The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee staged a protest rally in Hyderabad on Monday, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the handling of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The march began at the Indira Gandhi Statue on Necklace Road and ended at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer.

TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud led the delegation, which included Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and Ministers Ponnam Prabhakar, Duddilla Sridhar Babu, Mohammed Azharuddin and Gaddam Vivek Venkataswamy. The leaders met Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudarshan Reddy and submitted a memorandum outlining their demands.

The party pointed to media reports that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi had recorded objections on at least 14 occasions over a ten-month period. The objections reportedly concerned voter registration, deletion and restoration of names, changes to Form 6 and the management of electoral-roll databases.

Congress leaders also flagged reports that more than 13 crore names were struck off draft electoral rolls across 30 States and Union Territories during the SIR exercise. The Election Commission has said the figures pertain to deletions at the draft stage, that statutory provisions exist for filing claims and objections, and that its decisions, including those on SIR, were unanimous.

The memorandum sought the publication, to the extent legally permissible, of minutes, orders, notes and objections connected to the decisions in question. It also called for an independent review of the reported deletions and for State-wise and constituency-wise disclosure of deleted names, the reasons for deletion and the number subsequently restored.

The Congress further asked the Election Commission to publicly explain the objections reportedly raised by the two Election Commissioners and how they were considered before decisions were taken. It demanded safeguards to ensure that eligible voters are not excluded from electoral rolls due to administrative errors, inadequate verification, failure to receive notices or procedural lapses.

MPs Chamala Kiran Kumar Reddy and Anil Kumar Yadav, along with MLAs and senior party leaders, took part in the Hyderabad protest.

In Sangareddy, Medak MP Suresh Shetkar alleged that large-scale deletion of votes had occurred in elections in Bihar and West Bengal, and said the Congress was fighting against "vote theft" nationwide. Sangareddy DCC president Chandrashekhar Reddy, former DCC president Nirmala Jagga Reddy and Narayankhed MLA Sanjeeva Reddy urged party workers to stay vigilant at the booth level and verify the names of eligible voters on the electoral rolls.