Nearly 9.19 lakh voters from Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency were placed in the absent, shifted, dead and duplicate (ASDD) category and did not appear in the draft electoral roll published on August 17, Congress Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency in-charge Mohammed Waliullah Sameer said on Saturday.
Sameer said the figure represented about 39.46% of the constituency’s pre-SIR electorate of 23.29 lakh voters. His remarks have opened a political dispute over the scale of exclusions and the responsibility of elected representatives and political organisations to help eligible voters verify their names during the electoral-roll revision exercise.
The Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency comprises seven Assembly segments: Malakpet, Karwan, Goshamahal, Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Yakutpura and Bahadurpura. According to the figures cited by Sameer, Yakutpura recorded the highest number of voters placed in the ASDD category, at 1,54,982. Chandrayangutta followed with 1,48,869, while Malakpet recorded 1,47,799.
Karwan had 1,41,766 exclusions, according to the same figures. Bahadurpura recorded 1,21,350, Goshamahal 1,10,148 and Charminar 94,174. The figures refer to voters who, according to the categorisation cited by the Congress leader, did not appear in the draft roll after the SIR of electoral rolls.
Sameer targeted the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), alleging that the party’s claims of helping genuine voters retain their names on the electoral rolls had not addressed the scale of the exclusions. He called on AIMIM president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi to explain what steps were being taken for voters placed on the ASDD list.
“AIMIM’s tall claims of helping voters retain their names on electoral rolls during the SIR exercise have fallen flat,” Sameer said, according to the report. He also argued that the reduction in the draft electoral roll should have become the central political issue for the sitting MP.
The dispute places the focus on the practical consequences of draft-roll exclusions. A voter’s absence from a draft electoral roll can require the person to check the status of the entry and follow the prescribed process for raising an objection or seeking correction. The report, however, does not provide details of the number of objections filed, the number of names subsequently restored, or the response of the election authorities to the figures cited by the Congress leader.
The report also does not include a response from Owaisi or the AIMIM to Sameer’s allegations. The 9.19 lakh figure and the constituency-wise breakdown therefore remain claims attributed to the Congress leader within the political dispute over the SIR exercise. The next step for voters and political parties will be clarification of the final roll and the status of names placed in the ASDD category.
