Election officials in Telangana have rejected contested Form 7 applications submitted in Hyderabad’s Goshamahal and Musheerabad assembly constituencies during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, citing deficiencies in some applications and verification of the electors named in others.
Form 7 is used to object to the proposed inclusion or deletion of a name from an existing electoral roll. The issue has triggered allegations between the ruling Congress, the BJP and the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM over whether applications were submitted in bulk to seek the removal of eligible voters.
Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Commissioner and District Election Officer R V Karnan said the applications were not received in bulk, but in smaller numbers. In Goshamahal, the forms submitted were not signed by the applicants and were therefore ineligible for consideration, according to the election authorities.
In Musheerabad, one applicant, identified as Balachander, submitted Form 7 objections against 30 electors. Karnan said officials found that the electors were residing at the premises cited in the applications. The applications were consequently rejected, according to the report.
AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi had alleged that BJP activists were attempting to remove the names of Muslim voters from the electoral rolls during the revision process. He warned on Sunday that his party would organise a protest stronger than its earlier demonstration at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
The Telangana Congress has complained to Chief Electoral Officer C Sudharshan Reddy, alleging that Balachander belongs to the BJP and that the applications represented an unlawful attempt to seek deletion of genuine electors. The party has sought legal action. Congress sources also said they were unaware of a video that allegedly showed a Booth Level Officer in Goshamahal rejecting Form 7 applications.
The BJP has denied the allegations. State BJP president N Ramchander Rao said no BJP Booth Level Agents had submitted such applications. He said the Special Intensive Revision was being conducted by the state government machinery and that the Election Commission takes decisions on deletion only after field-level inquiries into objections.
The broader figures show the scale of the verification exercise. Sudharshan Reddy said on October 1 that around 29,000 Form 7 applications had been received during the revision, compared with 4.43 lakh Form 6 applications. Form 6 is used by individuals seeking inclusion in the electoral roll. The CEO said a Form 7 application must be submitted by an individual and that any application received in bulk from a political party would have to be properly inquired into and verified.
The CEO also said that 63 lakh of the 92 lakh voters who had received notices during the revision had been found eligible for inclusion in the electoral rolls. Verification of the remaining voters was still underway. The process of issuing notices and disposing of claims and objections is scheduled to continue until November 5, following publication of the draft electoral roll on August 17.
