T-Congress leader and former minister Marri Sashidhar Reddy today strongly protested that the chief electoral officer (CEO) of Telangana was keeping the political parties in dark about the decisions involving the fate lakhs of voters in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) area. In a letter written to the CEO on Thursday he said the CEO actions were shrouded in mystery and raising more doubts in the minds of the people rather than clarifying them.

Yesterday, the EC has released a press note that re-verification of the names of voters deleted by mistake last month would be conducted. Sashidhar Reddy said this was not conveyed to the political parties which in fact was the result of the objection raised by them to the deletion of genuine voters. Recalling the press note the CEO released yesterday and asking many TV channels later to remove the name of Election Commission from the news, Reddy questioned the motive of the CEO behind such an instruction to the media. “Unless it is clearly conveyed that this re-verification is being done on the instructions of EC, people will only see this exercise as another ploy by you(CEO) to cheat them, which, you should realize, unfortunately brings the EC into disrepute, ” Reddy said in the letter.
He further said, people’s faith in the institution of EC was shaken because of the manner in which “you (CEO) and the previous DEO Hyd / Comm GHMC (Somesh Kumar) acted on the directions of the Telangana CM, who usurped the jurisdiction of the EC.”

He asked the CEO to clarify about the status of over 19 lakh notices ‘allegedly’ issued to the voters and the number of voters deleted between 17.01.2015 and 16.09.2015 which still remains at 6.3 lakh only as per the website of CEO. “In case the number of names deleted is more than 6.3 lakh, you will have to do a lot of explanation. I am sure this conveys to you very clearly the kind of mistrust in the minds of people about your functioning,” he said..