Hyd HC dismisses plea to postpone polls over alleged discrepancies in voters list

The Hyderabad High Court on Friday asked the Election Commission to go ahead with its original schedule of conducting elections in the state on December 7, and dismissed a petition filed by Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy.

Shashidar Reddy had demanded that the polls be postponed and alleged several discrepancies in the final voters list that was published by the EC. 

The plea also pointed out that the delimitation process where seven mandals of Khammam district were concerned, which were transferred to Andhra Pradesh, was not done. The court observed that all the guidelines of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 were followed and also pointed out that merging the seven mandals did not change the total number of Assembly or Parliament constitutes in either state.

In September, the Supreme Court ssued notices to the Election Commission, the Union Law Ministry and the Telangana government about the decision to hastily revise the voter rolls in the state. A Bench comprising of Justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan were hearing a petition filed by Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy.

Directing the EC to hear objections of voters during the revision of rolls, the court also sought a report from the commission on allegations by the petitioner that there were defects in the names and details on existing voters rolls across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) alleged that there were more than 30 lakh bogus voters in the electoral list being prepared for conducting early elections in the state. The party also demanded that the Election Commission make details of deletions and additions to the voters list from 2015 to 2018, public. 

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao dissolved the state Assembly on September 6 to pave way for early elections. The polling will take place on December 7 and the counting will take place on December 11.