Government mapping voters through Dharani survey before GHMC polls, says Congress

Hyderabad: The Congress on Saturday alleged that the TRS government is conducting Dharani survey to 'map the voters' similar to Samagra Kutumba Survey (Comprehensive Household Survey) in 2014 prior to GHMC elections.

Speaking to media persons at Gandhi Bhavan, TPCC election commission coordination committee chairman Marri Shashidhar Reddy and convenor G Niranjan recalled that following bifurcation of the State, elections to GHMC were due in November 2014. In August 2014 the State government carried out the Samagra Kutumba Survey all over the State. Even though the data of the survey was never made public, this was utilised to map the voters, especially in the GHMC area where TRS fared very badly winning only 3 out of 24 seats during Assembly elections.

"We don't think that the present Dharani survey being carried out just before the GHMC elections is a coincidence. What normally could take about a year is being condensed into a short time. It seems to have a hidden agenda to map the voters once again."

"Apart from many empty promises, TRS seems to be deeply concerned about the anti-incumbency factor this time at the ward level due to neglect of public issues and indulgence in corruption by the corporators and MLAs, and all these attempts are aimed for damage control," said Shashidhar Reddy.

Niranjan alleged that the reservation of wards carried out last time in 2015 was fixed to suit the ruling TRS party. SC and ST and women reservations, which had to be done on the basis of the 2011 census, were faulty and done arbitrarily. "Ward-wise BC enumeration was tailored to suit the interest of the ruling party and hence the reservations done on its basis was also wrong. We had demanded that this time we will follow up on the process of reservations meticulously based on the experience last time. We asked for information about the enumeration block-wise details of the wards delimited last time but the GHMC did not share this information. Now either by an amendment or a new act, they appear to be keen to continue the same reservations, which were wrong, in the first place. We condemn this and demand that reservations be done in a fair manner," he added.