Telangana voter strength shade short of 3 crore mark

Elector strength declined as compared with SSR 2022 due to continuous updation process, says CEO

The number of voters in Telangana has been pegged at 2.99 crore, just short of the three crore mark, according to the draft electoral rolls released by the Chief Electoral Officer’s office on Thursday.

The number is lesser when compared with the 3.03 crore voters in the draft rolls published on the same day previous year. This was because of the continuous updation process which saw addition of 3.45 lakh new voters and deletion of 11.36 lakh votes for various reasons.

The number of male voters was higher at 1.50 crore as compared with female voters whose number stood at 1.49 crore in the 119 Assembly constituencies across the State. Third gender voters were numbered at 1951 and 15,282 service voters formed part of the draft roll while the number of NRI voters stood at 2,740.

Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana Vikas Raj said several interventions were taken up by the election authority during the year as a result of which 6.84 lakh new voters were added while 2.72 lakh names were deleted. The number of young voters in the age group 18-19 had gone up to 2.78 lakh in comparison with the previous special summary revision when their number stood at 83,207. In addition, 2,808 people from primitive vulnerable tribal groups were also enrolled during the summary revision and over 20,000 forms were received from electors above 17 years which would be processed in due course.

He said extensive Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) activities were taken up during the year as a result of which over 12 lakh applications were received for enrolment as voters. Election Literacy Clubs were formed and campus ambassadors identified in about 1,700 colleges targetting students in the age group 18-19.

Specific campaigns were taken up for tribals like Kolam, Thoti, Chenchus and Kondareddis in 361 habitations. This was in addition to various programmes taken up in coordination with resident welfare associations to address the apathy of urban electors.

At every stage, meetings of political parties were held and the list of claims and objections in Forms 9, 10, 11, 11A and 11B were handed over to them on a weekly basis as part of transparency measures. He added that enrolment of electors was continuous process and people who could not apply during the SSR-2023 would apply through NVSP website, voter helpline App or submit their filled in application forms to the booth-level officers so that they could be processed as part of the continuous updation.