Hyderabad: Not in our purview, says SEC

Hyderabad: The State Election Commission (SEC) of Telangana has denied that it has any role in weeding out illegal Rohingyas and Bangladeshis from the voter list of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

The BJP State and national leaders, while participating in the GHMC election campaign, have been raising the issue, accusing the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen leaders of causing enlisting of illegal migrants in the voter list. The BJP leaders have been accusing TRS of supporting AIMIM to reap political benefits, turning the illegal migrants into vote banks.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official, on condition of anonymity said, "the SEC has no role to play in the preparation the voter list. All that we have done is took the assembly constituency voter list prepared by the Election Commission of India and mapped to the 150 municipal divisions of the GHMC."

When contacted, an SEC official overseeing the GHMC election process clarified: "We don't have a separate process of preparation of electoral rolls. We take the electoral database of the assembly constituency from the Chief Electoral Officer of ECI in Telangana. We map the same to the municipal divisions. And, we allow voters to exercise their franchise based on the valid identification documents like voter identification card, Aadhaar or ration cards." He added that the State government and the ECI, "are the appropriate authorities to weed out any enlisting of non-Indians in the electoral rolls. Further, if the State government has not probed into such complaints and taken action, then, it is the ECI, which has to direct the State government to launch an investigation into how illegal migrants have figured in the electoral rolls.

A GHMC official overseeing the electoral process said that the issue comes to the fore only ahead of every election. "Those who have engaged in the preparation of the electoral rolls and summery rolls have been paid for their work." But, there is no single incident in which the ECI has ever taken stringent action against the officials engaged in the preparation of electoral rolls for such anomalies to deter enlisting of non-Indian citizens in the voter lists.

The problem, if any, continues to persist. The issue will continue to be raised by political parties. Some parties may use enlisting non-Indians to their advantage.