T voter mapping flags 88 lakh elector anomalies before SIR

Hyderabad: Telangana's pre-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) voter-mapping exercise has thrown up a major challenge. The chief electoral officer (CEO) has flagged more than 88 lakh (88,13,207) electors with anomalies across the state. The highest rate has been recorded in Quthbullapur assembly constituency, where 78.% of mapped electors have been marked for verification, far above the state average of 37%.Based on the district-wise and assembly constituency-wise elector mapping reports till June 4, the state has completed mapping of 2,32,96,233 electors, making up 68.7% of the total 3.39 crore electors.Telangana CEO Sudharshan Reddy told TOI, "There are 11 types of anomalies identified during pre-SIR mapping. These are being compared with the 2002 base pre-SIR mapping. In cases of minor anomalies, notices will be issued and hearings conducted. After examining the clarification and documents produced, the electors will be cleared. We are hoping that 90% of such anomalies will be corrected."The CEO said the situation had improved slightly in Hyderabad, Rangareddy and Medchal Malkajgiri, though these districts were still among the lowest in mapping progress.At the assembly constituency level, the highest anomaly rates were concentrated in Hyderabad's growth corridors. Quthbullapur in Medchal Malkajgiri topped the state with 78.%, followed by Lal Bahadur Nagar in Rangareddy at 74%, Uppal in Medchal Malkajgiri at 73%, Serilingampally in Rangareddy at 72.%, Kukatpally at 60%, Malkajgiri at 59%, Rajendranagar at 57%, Nizamabad Urban at 54% and Patancheru in Sangareddy at 54%.The data suggests that fast urbanisation, migration, apartment living, voter mobility, duplicate entries and old addresses could be contributing to the higher anomaly load in urban constituencies. The outer Hyderabad belt — Quthbullapur, Kukatpally, Uppal, Malkajgiri, Lal Bahadur Nagar, Serilingampally, Rajendranagar and Patancheru — features prominently among the constituencies with the highest percentage of flagged records.Mapping progress and data quality, however, are not the same. Medchal Malkajgiri added 10,107 newly mapped electors in a single day, the highest progress from the previous day, but still had the highest district-level anomaly rate. Similarly, Mahabubabad had 93% mapping coverage but 38% anomalies, while Nizamabad had 85% mapping coverage and 40% anomalies.The anomalies identified in the pre-SIR mapping include age and relationship mismatches when compared with the previous SIR records. These include less than nine months gap between electors mapped as siblings, less than 15 years' age gap between parent and progeny, more than 50 years age gap between progeny and parent, and less than 40 years gap between elector and grandparent.Other categories include mismatch in parent name between current enrolment and last SIR, change in relative type between father and mother, father in the current roll and husband in the last SIR, different father name in self-mapping cases, incorrect age difference between current and last SIR for the same elector, zero documents uploaded, and cases where only Aadhaar was uploaded without additional supporting documents prescribed under Election Commission of India guidelines.The data points to a clear pattern: electoral database quality appears to weaken in rapidly urbanising areas with higher population mobility, while rural districts with more stable populations show fewer anomalies and cleaner mapping outcomes.