Hyderabad: Former minister Marri Sasidhar Reddy on Monday demanded the Election Commission immediately relieve Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal and GHMC commissioner Somesh Kumar from their duties since they have “colluded” with the TRS government in removing several lakh genuine voters from the voters’ list.
Speaking to the media at Gandhi Bhavan along with other Congress leaders, Mr Reddy urged the EC not to take cognisance of the report sent by the two officers on the deletion of names from the voters’ list.
The Congress leaders also requested the EC to depute high-ranking officials to the State to inquire into the allegations. Pending inquiry, the two officers should be relieved of their duties, they said.
Referring to a similar incident in 2001 in UP, Mr Reddy said that the EC had suspended the officials concerned for deliberately removing several voters on the pretext that they were bogus.
He alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had instructed the two officers to “somehow remove 15 lakh names of settlers, minorities and Hindi-speaking North Indians residing in Hyderabad and the officers had followed the diktat”.
