Telangana CEO Defends SIR as 'De Novo' Exercise Amid Questions Over Voter Roll Deletions

Telangana Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudarshan Reddy has defended the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as a “de novo” exercise, disputing a report that said a large number of voters were removed through the ERONET app without due procedure.

In a comment posted from his official account on X, Mr Reddy said The Hindu’s report was incorrect and that the SIR was being carried out afresh. A de novo revision means preparing a new voter list from scratch rather than updating the existing roll. Unlike a Special Summary Revision, it does not use the current list as the base for adding eligible voters or making corrections through claims and objections. Instead, it seeks to reach every eligible person to re-establish identity and residence and create a new baseline roll.

Mr Reddy said Booth Level Officers (BLOs) distribute enumeration forms to electors and collect the filled-in forms back. “The electors who failed to return the EFs are marked as ASDD categories after due field verification and enquiry by BLOs. Such categories are not included in the draft rolls,” he said. ASDD stands for Absent, Shifted, Dead and Duplicate.

He said the ASDD categories had been displayed at Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) and Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AERO) offices and on the websites of the Chief Electoral Officer and District Election Officers. Their details were shared with Booth Level Agents and political parties, he added, concluding that non-inclusion in the draft rolls was done after following due procedure.

The Hindu reported that a bulk of voters from the ASDD list, totalling over 73 lakh, were deleted through auto-generated Form-7s on the ERONET software, digitally signed by the respective EROs, without the due procedure for deletion of voters. The report also said that with a majority of BLOs not going house to house to distribute or collect enumeration forms, the sanctity of the ASDD list was questionable, as it mostly contained names of voters who had not taken or returned the forms.

Mr Reddy did not respond to a query on why the 2025 rolls were taken as the basis for distribution of enumeration forms if the exercise was de novo. His statement also did not directly address the report’s claim that Form-7 deletions were auto-generated.

Several users on X challenged Mr Reddy’s statement and said BLOs had not undertaken home visits. Social activist S.Q. Masood posted that the CEO’s statement itself confirmed that voters who failed to return the forms were marked ASDD, but added: “No efforts were made to collect the EFs from the voters.” Another user said no BLO had come to any voter’s home and no notice had been given, and that voters had to rush and collect the forms themselves.

In a separate comment, Mr Reddy sought to clarify that the ASDD lists were available on the websites and at BLO and ERO level. If any person is wrongly marked as ASDD, they can always file Form 6, he said. Form 6 is used for inclusion of a new voter in the electoral roll.

The 2002 SIR in Telangana was taken up as a de novo exercise, in which BLOs conducted door-to-door surveys of voters and enrolled them. After that, de novo exercises remained largely limited to graduate constituencies and service electors. The current dispute turns on whether the same procedural rigour has been followed in the 2025 exercise, and on the reliability of the ASDD list. The CEO has maintained that due process was followed; the report and some voters’ accounts have raised questions about field verification and form collection.