Old rolls, new confusion: Unusual booth names surface during Telangana revision drive

Hyderabad: ‘Singapore’, ‘For Pakistan’, ‘Slingshot’, ‘Cockatoo’, ‘Cashew Lizard’, ‘Big Foot’ and ‘Goat’s Nest’ are among a string of bizarre entries listed as polling stations in the 2002 SIR rolls available on the Election Commission of India website — records that are now being used to map voters in Telangana.A scan of the old electoral rolls revealed several other strange phrases recurring across erstwhile districts of the state, including ‘for vegetarian’, ‘a new students’, ‘johncompete’, ‘find the pumpkin’, ‘among the monkeys’ and ‘while sleeping’.With the pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process under way, voters say these “preposterous” booth names have made it extremely difficult to verify whether their names — or those of their parents and grandparents — appear in the rolls being relied upon for mapping.

“I struggled for a week to find my name in the 2002 roll under Chevella constituency. When I saw the polling station names, I was shocked. I couldn’t recognise many of them despite living in the city since I was 14,” said Satya Narayana, a resident of Ranga Reddy district. “They hardly make sense. How does the Election Commission expect cooperation when the list is full of mistakes?” he asked.Ajay R, a voter from Wardhannapet constituency, said he came across entries such as ‘lazy’, ‘bite’ and ‘worry’ during his search.

“I don’t understand how these were accepted as polling station names. It suggests a lack of due diligence while preparing the rolls. It’s unfortunate that such data is now being used to sanitise electoral rolls,” he said. Ajay was a minor in 2002.Some Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) expressed surprise when informed about the anomalies. They said they would examine the rolls and flag discrepancies for correction. “Booth-level officers will have to report such errors. So far, no such issue has been formally flagged during the pre-SIR exercise,” said K Partha Simha Reddy, ERO, Chevella.Telangana chief electoral officer C Sudharshan Reddy declined to comment on the matter.