Congress demands removal of CEO, GHMC chief

Congress senior leader and former MLA Marri Shashidhar Reddy demanded the immediate suspension of Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwarlal and GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar for their alleged involvement in deleting the names of voters from the city’s electoral rolls.

Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan here on Monday, Shashidhar Reddy appealed to Chief Election Commissioner Naseem Zaidi to take action against Bhanwarlal and Somesh Kumar for the deletion of lakhs of genuine names from the voters list. Else, he said he would approach the Supreme Court on the issue. He alleged that the names of voters were removed at the instance of TRS Government, which is afraid of losing next GHMC elections. He said Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has directed the CEO and GHMC Commissioner to delete the names of nearly 15 lakh voters who could vote against the TRS. He said nearly six lakh names were removed on the pretext of ‘locked houses’.

Shashidhar Reddy said it was mandatory for the GHMC to issue a notice before deleting the voters’ name. However, no such process was adopted and the names were directly removed without giving any intimation. He said at least 35% of deleted names belonged to people who hailed from Seemandhra region and 30% were minorities. Remaining were names of voters who originates from different parts of the city. He said at least one lakh voters have been removed from the Sanathnagar Assembly constituency.

Former minister P. Sabitha Indira Reddy, former MLA Sudhir Reddy and ex-Mayor Banda Karthika Reddy were also present. (INN)