Hyderabad: Elections this season bring a peculiar scenario for lakh of voters hailing from the Seemandhra region, but settled in the city. Elections to the state will end with its bifurcation and these people will be under the spotlight for who they choose to elect. Some self-proclaimed migrant groups such as Telugu Sainyam are even offering them protection in Hyderabad and are asking them to join their ranks.
Telugu Sainyam claims there are about 35 lakh “in-migrants” from Andhra region living in the city. The group’s website doesn’t provide information on who is behind it but only claims to provide security to all in-migrants if they ask, free of cost.
There are many such forums, like the Telangana Settlers’ Forum and the Telangana Settlers’ Front. All of these claim the number of in-migrants to be between 25 lakh and 35 lakh in the city. According to the 2001 Census there were about four lakh in-migrants in the city out of a population of 57 lakh who had moved between 1991 and 2001.
The TRS has traditionally not made any inroads into the city's politics. The battle was almost always between the Congress and the Telugu Desam. The Telugu Desam is looking to cash in on the in-migrant vote, expecting them to vote for the party since migrant voters are not really expected to go the TRS or Congress way.
Telugu Desam leader Kambampati Rammohan Rao definitely thinks so. “Because the bifurcation part is over, the vote swing will be towards us,” he said.
Assembly segments in the city like Secunderabad, Secunderabad Cantonment, LB Nagar, and Jubilee Hills all elected MLAs from the Congress and Telugu Desam in 2009.
Outstation techies may miss voting
A major chunk of people working in corporate companies, including the IT sector, BPO and others, who were the driving force behind the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement, will not be able to practice their voting rights in the upcoming general elections.
These eligible voters are mainly those who are working in Andhra Pradesh-based multi-national companies, but are listed as voters in their respective states.
There are over 3.27 lakh people working in these corporate companies based in Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam as per 2012 records of the IT ministry. And according to IT Associations, over 30 per cent of employees in these corporate companies are from other states.
“May 12 is the voting day in our constituency in Varanasi. I wanted to vote, but I am not sure whether I would get leave from the company and get train reservations. It is a 30-hour journey from Hyderabad to Varanasi by train. And I don’t want to shell out thousands of rupees on a flight,” said Achal Singh, an employee of Wipro Technologies.
Naresh Kumaran from Chennai, a manager trainee in a BPO company in Habsiguda, says, “I am sad that my wife and I will not be able to vote. I know elections are not a yearly process but I am tied up with a lot of work and have targets to meet. To go and vote, I need to take at least a three-day leave, which I can’t afford to.”
There are those who say that the EC should make special voting arrangements for such groups.
“Votes of educated people are crucial in the election process. The EC should make arrangements for voting though remote desktops and remote login systems,” said Sundeep Kumar Makthala, president, Telangana, IT Association.
