Hyderabad: Many in city don’t get voter slips

Hyderabad: With voting in the State Assembly elections to take place on Thursday, a large number of voters have not received voter slips in various divisions of Hyderabad district even as late as Tuesday. The door-to-door distribution of voter slips was initiated on November 15.

Only a day is left for the campaigning to end before the polling, citizens in almost all city divisions confirmed that they did not receive voter slips, while some said they downloaded the slips from the website of the Telangana State Election Commission. It is feared that many others might skip voting with lack of slips.

Social activists allege that due to no initiative taken up by the election authorities to ensure that everyone receives the voter slip, there would be a large effect on voting percentage. Activist Asif Hussain Sohail says the election authorities have been creating awareness among voters to vote and increase the voting percentage, but failed to distribute slips. However, it is not compulsory to have voter slips to cast votes, but still there is a lack of awareness among voters to have slips to exercise their franchise.

“It is very crucial to inform everyone that it is not compulsory to have a voter slip to vote. Just go to your polling booth with relevant identity documents and vote,” he says.

Asif alleges that hardly 60 per cent of people have received voter slips; remaining are yet to be distributed. The election authorities and political parties are ensuring that the voting percentage goes up. “The BLOs were unable to distribute the information slips to all voters in their respective areas.” Also many may not access online to download slips. Educated people were able to download voter slips using different modes. However, other voters don’t make extra effort to get voter slips. They may skip voting if they don’t get voter slips,” he adds.

Residents of Nampally complain that in the locality of around 50 houses none from the Election Commission or the GHMC had knocked on doors and distributed slips.