2002 SIR Data of Thousands of Voters Go Missing
Residents say the entire exercise failed them, seek answers
Hyderabad: The special intensive revision (SIR) data of the year 2002 of about 15,000 voters of an entire neighbourhood at Fatehnagar, Balanagar, has gone missing. After making the rounds of election officies, the voters, some of whom have received enumeration forms, have decided to boycott the ongoing exercise altogether in protest.
In 2002, Secunderabad Cantonment Assembly had 353 polling booths. After the delimitation in 2009, polling booths 348 to 353 were shifted to the Kukatpally Assembly constituency. The Fathenagar division currently has polling booths 67, 68, 128, 129, 130, 131 and 133.
None of these booths were found listed in the 2002 SIR electoral roll. During the SIR-2026 mapping phase conducted earlier, the residents faced a sudden lack of data. “When we don’t have information from 2002, what is the purpose of filling up the forms? Most of us have decided to boycott this process. I even didn’t accept the form from BLO,” said Naseer Khan, a private company employee.
Advocates Md Hussain and Md Maqsood have taken been pursuing the matter with the poll authorities since the beginning of the year. "The residents are not seeking any special favour. They only want the State Election Commission to trace the SIR-2002 records relating to Gowthamnagar and Nagarjuna Colony so that genuine voters do not face unnecessary hardships. We hope the issue will be resolved at the earliest," they said.
Political leaders across the spectrum have stepped in to help. BRS booth level agent (BLA) K. Venu Kumar pointed out: “If they fill the enumeration forms, everyone from these missing booths will receive a notice. Those who receive notices will have to rush to prove they hail from these localities but their history in the 2002 SIR records is not available,” Kumar said.
BJP Minority Morcha state vice-president Md Naseer said that he had taken the matter to the notice of party leadership and planned to take up the issue with election authorities. “We have decided to fight in unison irrespective of political background, as this is an existential matter for the voters who stayed in these localities for generations,” Naseer said.
Local Congress leader Mohammed Asif Baba said, “Residents are extremely concerned because of the SIR-2002 missing data. The matter is causing anxiety amongst the voters.”
After the issue was taken up with Chief Electoral Officer K. Sudarshan Reddy, he asked the district electoral officers of Hyderabad and Medchal-Malkajgiri districts to obtain a report from the ERO over the matter and submit a report.
