Hyderabad-based civic activist SQ Masood in a letter to the Bahadurpura Assembly constituency’s electoral registration officer on Sunday, May 12 stated that his name along with that of 10 of his family members has been removed from the voter list. Bahadurpura falls under the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency, which is witnessing a contest between incumbent MP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi and Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) K Madhavi Latha.
Masood’s letter came a day before Telangana went to the polls on May 13. The letter also stated that the names of nearly 2.68 lakh voters in the Hyderabad Parliamentary constituency have been deleted.
In his letter, Masood said that he came to know about the deletion when he attempted to obtain a voter slip on the night of Saturday, May 11. “I was informed that my name has been deleted from the electoral list without any prior notice,” he wrote, adding that there were no clear grounds for deletion considering that he had voted in the Assembly elections in November 2023 and had resided in the same constituency for the past four decades.
“My name and that of my family members were deleted before April 25, 2024,” Masood told TNM, adding that he only found out about it more than two weeks later.
The letter asked the electoral registration officer to furnish details regarding the grounds for the deletion of names, the name and designation of the officer responsible, and copy of notices, inquiry notes, and remarks submitted by the said officer to qualify for such deletion.
Issues of bogus voting and voter deletion aren’t new in the Hyderabad constituency.
After the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) had informed that it had deleted 5.5 lakh bogus votes on April 20, Madhavi Latha had alleged that the GHMC hadn’t removed all bogus voters. This is in continuation of her allegations in several of her campaign speeches that the only reason Owaisi and AIMIM have won every general election was the presence of bogus voters.
The issue also cropped up during the 2018 Telangana Assembly elections when 22 lakh names were deleted from the electoral rolls without any information to the voters.