Hyderabad’s two-day special voter enrolment camps ended on Friday with a poor public response, as booth-level officers were absent from some polling stations on the first day and several electors said the camps had been scheduled on working days.
Booth-level officers, or BLOs, were stationed at polling stations on Friday after many were reportedly unavailable on Thursday. However, the turnout of electors remained low across the city. Booth-level agents representing political parties were also absent from several polling stations, according to the report.
The camps were organised primarily to enrol new voters and people left out of the electoral roll. Election authorities had also instructed BLOs to conduct house-to-house visits during the exercise. The report said these visits did not take place in several parts of Hyderabad over the two days.
The low participation has drawn attention to the practical difficulties involved in maintaining an accurate electoral roll in a large city. BLOs blamed electors for showing limited interest in the enrolment exercise, while some residents said the timing made it difficult for them to attend. One elector told the newspaper that such camps should instead be held on holidays or over a Saturday and Sunday.
The people who did visit polling stations raised issues beyond new enrolment. These included requests to change addresses, a significant administrative requirement in a city where residents may move between neighbourhoods for work, housing or other reasons. The report did not provide a breakdown of the number of applications received at the Hyderabad camps or the locations where house-to-house visits were not carried out.
The response also comes against the backdrop of Hyderabad’s historically low polling percentage, which the report identified as a broader concern. However, the supplied information does not establish how many electors attended the special camps, how many applications were processed, or whether the enrolment exercise changed the final electoral roll.
According to data from the state election authorities cited in the report, enumeration forms from 2,64,87,213 electors were received and their names were included in the draft electoral roll. The figure relates to the wider electoral-roll exercise and is not identified as the number of applications generated by the Hyderabad camps.
The immediate administrative task for election officials is to process enrolment, correction and address-change requests received during the exercise and continue the electoral-roll revision process. The report does not specify a further deadline or the next public camp dates.
