Telangana Congress urges EC to carry out transparent SIR
NEW DELHI: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president Mahesh Kumar Goud on Sunday said the Congress would safeguard the voting rights of people in the state and would not allow any irregularities during the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, amid concerns raised by the party over the ongoing exercise. Telangana Congress also met with the state chief electoral officer to urge for a transparent process with no rush arguing that there aren’t going to be any elections in the state any time soon.Goud alleged that the revision process was being used to target “secular votes” and said the Congress was closely monitoring developments while holding meetings to ensure that eligible voters were not disenfranchised.”We are overall concerned about the bad process being taken up by the Union government of deleting secular votes. We are having several meetings to protect our own Telangana citizens’ votes… A vote is a valued, precious thing in a democratic system… We won’t allow any unwanted thing to happen in Telangana,” he said.The remarks come as the Telangana Congress has sought greater transparency in the conduct of the SIR process. Earlier, a delegation of state Congress leaders met the state chief electoral officer and urged that the revision exercise be carried out with complete transparency. The party also requested that the process be extended, arguing that there is sufficient time for a more comprehensive exercise as no major elections are currently scheduled in the state.The EC had on May 14 announced the launch of SIR Phase III of electoral rolls across 16 states and three Union territories, covering more than 36 crore electors in a phased manner, including those in Telangana.According to the commission, the exercise has been planned in coordination with the ongoing house-listing component of the Census to ensure efficient utilisation of field machinery.Under the schedule released by the EC, Telangana and Punjab share a qualifying date of October 1. The preparation phase is being conducted from June 15 to June 24, followed by Booth Level Officer (BLO) visits from June 25 to July 24. Rationalisation of electoral rolls is also scheduled to be completed by July 24.The draft electoral roll will be published on July 31, after which claims and objections can be filed until August 30. The notice and disposal process will continue until September 28, and the final electoral roll is scheduled to be published on October 1, 2026.
