In a letter to the District Election Authority and Commissioner of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and the Electoral Registration Officers of various areas, Hyderabad-based political party Majlis Bachao Tahreek (MBT) alleged that many fake voters had been enrolled, and require to be weeded out.

“It is to bring to your kind notice that many fake, duplicate, imaginary, non existing entities had been enrolled by vested interest in collusion with GHMC staff without fulfilling the declared criteria and guidelines for voter enrolment,” the letter written by MBT president Majeed Ullah Khan said.

The letter alleges that while linking Aadhaar with the Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) was the mechanism to filter out fake voters, Booth Level Officers (BLOs) handed over the process of identification to workers of one party, because of which many bogus voters had been enrolled.

MBT said that they had detected thousands of multiple EPICs and bogus voters and had complained to the Election Commission as well, and the matter is presently sub-judice in the Hyderabad High Court.

“If there is no clean voter list, there cannot be clean election and the integrity and authority of Election Commission will be question If EC can’t detect and weed out fake and bogus voters,” the letter said. 

It further urged the authorities to take corrective steps before the voter lists are updated.

In October 2014, the GHMC had decided to link Aadhaar cards with the Electoral Photo Identity Cards to remove fake ID cards and those who didn’t have Aadhaar cards had to visit the nearest Mee Seva centres.

Earlier in 2018, the Hyderabad city police arrested nine people in connection voter ID fraud. The people arrested reportedly included contract employees of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and Mee Seva centres, according to Telangana Today.