Telangana SIR: Up to 66% of Voters in Hyderabad's Outer Constituencies Received Anomaly Notices

More than 60 per cent of electors in several assembly constituencies on the periphery of Hyderabad received anomaly notices during Telangana's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while the rate in most constituencies within Hyderabad district remained below 35 per cent, according to a new analysis of official data.

The findings are contained in a report by the SABAR Institute and the Constitutional Guardians Forum, which examined data covering 92,85,255 anomaly notices issued from 36,169 polling stations across 119 constituencies. On that basis, the report concludes that roughly one in three electors in the state received a notice.

The notice rate was 66.6 per cent in Quthbullapur, 65.4 per cent in Kukatpally, 57 per cent in Uppal, 56 per cent in Medchal and 55.8 per cent in Serilingampally, the report states. The median rate for Telangana as a whole was 28.7 per cent.

The single largest recorded reason for notices was "Unmapped with Last SIR", which accounted for 34.9 per cent of the total. The report describes this as a failure to match an elector against the previous roll rather than a defect in the elector's own record.

The report also examined the share of Muslim names among notices by stated reason. Muslim names accounted for 50.5 per cent of the 4,02,624 notices citing six or more children — a figure the Election Commission of India treats as an anomaly — against their 12.7 per cent share of Telangana's population in the 2011 Census, the report notes. Muslim names made up 22.3 per cent of notices citing a gap of less than nine months between the ages of successive children, 18.3 per cent where the age difference between parents was above 50 years, and 16.7 per cent in cases of self-name mismatch. The share was 14.8 per cent for parent-name mismatch and 13.8 per cent where the parent-age difference was below 15 years. In contrast, Muslim names accounted for 7.5 per cent of "Unmapped with Last SIR" notices.

Sabir Ahamed, lead researcher at the SABAR Institute, cautioned against reading the progeny figures as a current trend. "While a little over 50 per cent of the notices sent to voters with Muslim names were for progeny equal to or greater than six, we have to be cognisant of the fact that the Muslim total fertility rate has been steadily declining over the years. So those who are listed as having six or more siblings are not young. They are an older generation," he said, citing a total fertility rate of 2.36 in the National Family Health Survey.

Within Hyderabad district, the anomaly notice rate varied across the 15 constituencies. Secunderabad Cantonment recorded the highest at 37.5 per cent, followed by Secunderabad at 35.3 per cent and Karwan at 34.8 per cent. Nampally had the lowest at 23.3 per cent.

The share of Muslim names among notices was highest in Bahadurpura at 85.18 per cent, followed by Chandrayangutta at 71.15 per cent, Charminar at 61.32 per cent, Yakutpura at 61.16 per cent and Nampally at 57.35 per cent. The report also identified polling stations in Karwan, Bahadurpura, Chandrayangutta, Yakutpura and Charminar among those with the largest absolute numbers of notices carrying Muslim names.

Among the 20 polling stations with the highest total notices, Part 91 in Kukatpally had 1,061, Part 235 in Quthbullapur had 1,057, Part 139 in Quthbullapur had 1,038, and Part 446 in Medchal had 1,031. The median polling station carried 226 notices. All 20 of the heaviest booths, which ranged between 973 and 1,061 notices, were located in Medchal Malkajgiri or Rangareddy districts.

The report notes that 184 of 36,353 polling stations were absent from the published data, with the missing stations concentrated in Sathupalle, Kollapur, Vemulawada and Bhupalpalle. It states that the totals and notice rates for these four constituencies are therefore understated.

The SIR is an exercise ordered by the Election Commission of India to update electoral rolls by removing entries of deceased, shifted or duplicated voters. The process in Telangana has been contested in courts and criticised by opposition parties, who contend that genuine electors could be left off the rolls. The commission has maintained that the exercise is intended to make the rolls accurate, and that notices give voters an opportunity to respond.