Owaisi flags ‘anomalies’ in SIR, seeks wider list of Valid documents

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to expand the list of documents accepted under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) while raising concerns over what he described as anomalies in the ongoing exercise.

Addressing the media, Mr. Owaisi said the 12 documents currently prescribed by the ECI should not be treated as an exhaustive list. He called on the Telangana government to inform the ECI about the documents it issues so that they too can be considered valid for verification.

“We are requesting the ECI to accept PAN cards, which are issued by the Central government. The State government issues white ration cards and Food Security cards. You can check these cards and accept them. The State government also issues driving licences,” he said, adding that Telangana does not issue three of the 12 documents listed by the ECI.

The Hyderabad MP also questioned the criteria being used to classify voters as anomalies. He said a voter’s record was being flagged if the age gap between a father and child was 15 years, between a grandfather and grandchild was 40 years, or if a voter had six children. Pointing to examples, Mr. Owaisi said both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have six siblings. “I too have six children,” he remarked.

Citing data from Zaheerabad Assembly constituency, he said that of the 2,57,090 people mapped, 1,45,794 had been categorised as electors with anomalies, including 1,31,936 voters. He expressed concern that such voters could be left out of the draft electoral rolls.

“I am saying this with a guarantee that many BLOs in Sangareddy themselves are in the list of anomalies,” he said. He also pointed out a possibility of spelling errors in different voter lists leading to electors being classified as anomalies. “It was the election commission that recorded these names [while preparing 2002 draft rolls]. Why should the people be punished for this?” he said.

The AIMIM chief added that the National Register of Citizens and National Population Register work was being carried out by means of the SIR exercise.

Touching upon the incident in which Indian seafarers were killed by US forces, Mr. Owaisi condemned the incident and described US President Donald Trump as “crazy”. “Trump has gone mad. CENTCOM knows what ships are passing there. He has made a tamasha,” he said.