Telangana Faces Deletion of 7.35 Million Voters From Rolls

The Election Commission of India has identified more than 7.35 million voters in Telangana as uncollectable following a Special Intensive Revision of elector rolls. This process, part of a national drive to digitize and validate votes, found that only 78.30% of the state's 33.8 million recorded voters completed the necessary enumeration forms. Approximately 21% of the total votes remain uncalibrated, leaving them at risk of deletion.

A status report from the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana categorized these voters as Absent, Shifted, or Dead. Digitization rates varied significantly by region; Yadadri Bhongiri district achieved the highest rate at 94.31%, while Hyderabad recorded the lowest at 58.89%, placing 1.947 million voters in the capital at risk.

This potential reduction is nearly double the volume of off-record votes recently identified in neighboring Andhra Pradesh, where the commission deleted nearly 4.5 million voters as of July 31. Draft rolls for Telangana will be published on August 17, with a window for claims and objections open until September 16. The final publication of the rolls is scheduled for October 19.