SIR Has No Political Overtones: Ramchander Rao
Rao explained the objective of the SIR is to refine the voter rolls by identifying and removing discrepancies, drawing a parallel to similar drives conducted in West Bengal and other states
Hyderabad: Telangana BJP President N Ramchander Rao on Tuesday asserted that the Special Revision Process (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state here has no "political overtones" but rather just a routine exercise by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Speaking to ANI, Rao explained that the objective of the SIR is to refine the voter rolls by identifying and removing discrepancies, drawing a parallel to similar drives conducted in West Bengal and other states.
"Like in Bengal and other places, where the fake voters and illegal immigrants are there, they will be deleted. And what Bengal has done, or what the SIR has done, is detect, delete, and deport. So this is what a voter list has to see--whether the voter list contains the real names, whether there are any fake voters in there, whether there are any dead voters, or whether there are any transferred and shifted voters,” he said.
So SIR has no political overtones in it. It is a regular exercise done by the Election Commission of India (ECI), he said. Meanwhile, Telangana Congress has called for the SIR process to be conducted with transparency.
A delegation of state Congress leaders met with the State Chief Electoral Officer over the issue earlier, urging that the SIR process be conducted with complete transparency and be extended for a period of time since no major elections are scheduled in the state.
The ECI on May 14 announced the conduct of Special Intensive Revision Phase-III of electoral rolls across 16 States and three Union Territories, covering over 36 crore electors in a phased manner, including Telagana.
