Hyderabad: Questions raised over the silence of GHMC and EC on complaints

Hyderabad : The silence of officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and the Election Commission over the location of polling booths and the electoral rolls has come under sharp criticism.

It may be mentioned, that barring the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), the Congress and BJP, the two national parties have raised several objections on the two issues.

The Congress has come at loggerheads with AIMIM and the GHMC authorities, raising objections on the multiple entries of the same persons in the electoral rolls during the Telangana State Assembly elections.

Earlier, the BJP senior leader and Goshamahal MLA Raja Singh highlighted the issue of voter entries running into 50 to 100 in the same door numbers.

Most of the allegations were that the electoral list manipulation taking place in the Chandrayanagutta and Yakutpura assembly segments. Besides, locating the polling stations in shabby areas prevents some from exercising their franchise freely.

Similarly, Madhavi Latha, the BJP contestant for the Hyderabad parliament constituency levelled serious charges. She alleged that besides large-scale manipulation of voter lists, she claimed that a polling station is run in the house of an AIMIM corporator from the Old City.

Further complaints made about the manipulation of voter lists to the GHMC officials and the officials of the Election Commission in the state failed to bear any results. "It is giving an apprehension on the role of the GHMC officials who look after the preparation of the voter lists, and on acting to weedout fake votes appearing in the forms of multiple entries of the same persons in the voter lists."

Against this backdrop, no response to the allegations either from the GHMC or the Election Commission's claiming that it is all prepared to conduct the ensuing parliament elections in the Old City in a free and fair manner coming under question.