Hyderabad: TPCC Official Spokesperson Syed Nizamuddin on Monday demanded immediate seizure of all bulk Form 7 applications across Hyderabad. The demand covers pre-printed and bulk-prepared voter deletion forms. He accused the BJP of trying to misuse the Form 7 process during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
Nizamuddin addressed a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan on Monday. DCC Presidents Deepak John (Secunderabad), Syed Khalid Saifullah (Hyderabad) and Mota Rohith (Khairtabad) joined him. TPCC Election Commission Coordination Committee Chairman Pulipati Rajesh Kumar, committee members Wajid Hussain and SIR Coordinator Gampa Venu Gopal also attended.
The issue, he said, no longer concerns whether scrutiny will eventually delete an individual voter. The larger question is how someone accessed electoral-roll data and sorted it household-wise. Someone then printed it in bulk, he said, and turned it into ready-to-sign Form 7 applications.
Nizamuddin said the Congress placed Form 7 applications from Musheerabad before the Chief Electoral Officer on October 1. He alleged that someone had printed the details in advance. They covered the names, addresses and electoral details of a Congress booth-level agent and more than 30 of his family members. According to him, someone entered only the objector’s name by hand. The objector named is a BJP booth-level agent.
Spokesperson says forms did not come from personal knowledge
“This was not a voter sitting at home and filling a Form 7 from personal knowledge. Someone first extracted the electoral data, sorted an entire family, printed the forms and then left only one blank for the objector’s name,” Nizamuddin said.
He said the distinction was crucial. Form 7 should serve as an individual objection on a specific ground, not as a mass-produced political instrument.
Pre-printed stocks allegedly kept ready
Nizamuddin alleged that similar pre-printed stocks also existed for Bahadurpura and Goshamahal. He claimed someone held back thousands of forms prepared for Hyderabad constituencies after the Musheerabad case became public. A BJP constituency in-charge in one Hyderabad Assembly segment reportedly holds around 70,000 Form 7 applications, he further claimed.
“If the Election Commission has accepted only about 30,000 Form 7 applications in the entire State, but tens of thousands more have allegedly been printed and kept ready in just one constituency, the Commission cannot treat this as a routine objection process,” he said.
The forms not yet submitted are now more important than those already filed, he said. They could reveal who prepared them, where the voter data came from and whether the exercise had central organisation. The Congress wants authorities to impound, photograph and seal every pre-printed, bulk-copied or single-person batch of Form 7s. They must act before the evidence disappears, he said. He also demanded that authorities accept no fresh bulk Form 7 applications until they establish and record the chain of custody.
CEO’s clarification raises the question of origin
Nizamuddin referred to the Chief Electoral Officer’s clarification that a Form 7 does not automatically result in deletion. The Congress, he said, does not question the scrutiny process but raises a more fundamental issue. The CEO has explained what happens to a voter after someone files a Form 7, he said.
“We are asking what happened before the Form 7 reached the booth,” he said. He asked who downloaded the roll, who selected the family, who printed the forms, who distributed them and on whose instructions.
Even if officials eventually reject a false objection, he said, the alleged organised use of electoral-roll data to prepare deletion applications in advance remains a serious matter.
Download logs and paper trail sought
Nizamuddin demanded complete download logs for Musheerabad, Bahadurpura and Goshamahal. The logs should show the login used, the date of export, the terminal that accessed the data and the platform that supplied it. He said the Election Commission should clarify the source of the voter information. The options include the CEO’s system, an Electoral Registration Officer login, the BLO application or any portal open to party booth-level agents.
The TPCC leader also sought a field-by-field comparison between the disputed printed Form 7 applications and the official electoral-roll export. “Without the download log, we are left with an allegation. The moment the log is produced, the trail becomes verifiable,” he said.
He also demanded a full paper trail. It should show which press printed the forms, who paid for them, who transported them and who handed them over at the booth level. Officials should also physically verify the identity of the handwritten objector in every suspicious case, he said.
Review and hearing sought before any deletion
Nizamuddin pointed out that even an elector filing more than five objections must undergo mandatory review by the Electoral Registration Officer. An objection against more than 30 members of one family should therefore have triggered immediate scrutiny, he said. He also wants officials to match every objection with the ground cited in the form.
“If the ground is death, there must be a corresponding record with the Registrar of Births and Deaths or a proper BLO field report. A person cannot simply mark a living voter as dead because somebody handed him a printed list,” he said.
He demanded that officials delete no name on a pre-printed or bulk Form 7 until the inquiry ends. The objector must appear personally, the affected elector must get a hearing and officials must pass a reasoned speaking order.
SMS alerts and the October 7 deadline
Nizamuddin also questioned reliance on SMS alerts. A message to a linked mobile number cannot count as adequate service of notice, he said. He noted that around 7.41 lakh notices in the ongoing revision have already remained unserved. “Non-service cannot become a shortcut to deletion,” he said.
He said the urgency is greater because the claims and objections window will close on October 7. The final electoral roll is set to come out on November 9. He warned that if authorities seize the evidence only after the final roll comes out, the damage will already have been done. “The Election Commission must act before the process closes, not after it,” he said.
BJP must also explain how its booth-level agents allegedly came to hold family-wise, pre-filled Form 7 applications, he said. “This is not about one booth or one family anymore. It is about whether voter deletion is being converted into an organised political exercise using electoral-roll data,” he said.
Summing up the Congress demand, Nizamuddin said: “Publish the download logs, seize the forms that have not yet been submitted, identify who printed and distributed them, and stop any deletion from a Form 7 whose voter fields were filled before the objector signed.”
