Telangana CEO orders probe into bulk voter deletion forms

Telangana Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudharshan Reddy has directed district election officials to investigate bulk Form 7 applications and take legal action against applicants found to have knowingly made false declarations. The order, issued Monday, October 5, comes amid allegations that prefilled applications were used to try to remove eligible voters from electoral rolls during the state’s Special Intensive Revision. Reddy instructed district officials and Electoral Registration Officers to conduct inquiries before taking action under election rules and Section 31 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. The direction also covers false declarations in Forms 6, 6A and 8, which are used for voter registration and changes to existing voter records. Officials are to act against applicants only where an inquiry finds that a declaration was knowingly false. Form 7 allows a person to object to the inclusion of a name on the electoral roll or seek deletion of an existing entry. The CEO’s office said it had received about 28,753 Form 7 applications across Telangana in recent days, including about 5,000 in Hyderabad.