In tense meeting, Revanth Reddy warns Congress leaders to take SIR seriously

In Wednesday night’s online meeting on SIR with party leaders, CM Revanth Reddy said he felt some party leaders, ministers and MLAs were not being serious about SIR, warning that it could damage the Congress in the state. He instructed the ministers, MLAs, MPs and constituency in-charges to be extra vigilant in the wake of concerns about the potential deletion of genuine voters’ names from the electoral rolls.

‘Serious matter’

“The SIR issue is a very serious matter. Some leaders are being negligent about SIR,” the CM said, adding that he would not remain a silent spectator as the party suffers. He waved the district-wise reports he received regarding SIR awareness meetings. Awareness about the SIR process was low, the CM claimed, and he threatened to replace district in-charges found to be negligent or not serious about the process.

The CM instructed leaders to organise more awareness meetings on SIR and entrusted the ministers in charge of districts with more responsibilities to make the meetings successful. He emphasised that the voting rights of the poor should be safeguarded during the SIR. “If the poor lose their votes, they will also lose their Aadhaar and ration cards,” he said.

“All leaders should strictly adhere to party directives,” the CM said, adding, “We will not tolerate any negligence and are observing the performance of the in-charges for 10 days.” Reddy also appealed to the party’s sarpanches to help organise SIR door-to-door visits and create awareness among people in villages.

Door-to-door visits

The SIR home visits process will go on until July 24.

The BRS and AIMIM have raised concerns that a rushed process could lead to mistakes and a botched revision of electoral rolls. AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi noted that as the monsoon has set in, the rain may impact the door-to-door visits, and suggested that a one-month period may not be enough, warning the process may be flawed and names of genuine electors may get deleted due to mistakes committed in haste.

“Each BLO has been entrusted with the task of visiting 800 to 1,000 electors in their area, distributing enumeration forms, and collecting them,” said C Sudarshan Reddy, Telangana’s Chief Electoral Officer. He said that during the pre-SIR exercise, information of around 89.88 lakh electors was found to have minor mistakes and anomalies. In the pre-SIR exercise, officials verified the information of about 2.38 crore voters, while the state has a total of 3.38 crore registered voters.