Hyderabad: Voter card linkage with Aadhaar leaves leaders jittery

Hyderabad: The Centre’s proposal of linking the Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) with Aadhaar card is making the BRS MLAs from the city outskirts a worried lot because most of the voters in their constituencies have votes both in the city and also in the villages and these people generally prefer voting in their native places.

The voters in the constituencies like Medchal, LB Nagar, Serilingampally, Uppal, Quthbullahpur, Kukatpally and others generally come to the city for their livelihood and go to their native places on different occasions like festivals like Sankranti. Election is also the occasion for these sections of people to cast their vote and also meet their families in villages. For Example, a large number of voters in LB Nagar Constituency are from Nalgonda district and it was evident when many had cast their votes in the last Munugode by election.

However, this section of voters is leaving the MLAs from the outskirts of the city jittery. The MLAs fear that these voters would prefer their native place compared to them and the sizable number is a worrying factor. The MLAs had this fear when the Devarakadra MLA Alla Venkateshwarlu had the Atmeeya Sammelan in the city. The voters attending the meeting had assured to visit their native place and ensure his victory. The local MLA who was also in the meeting, pointed out that they have been in the constituency for the last five years and came to him for all their works and when it comes to election they were preferring their native place.

If the Centre’s proposal to link the EPIC with Aadhaar card is implemented, the voters would have to select only one vote and the other vote would be deleted by the deduplication software. Presently, the linking of EIPC with Aadhaar is kept as optional and not mandatory. Once it is made mandatory the duplicate EPICs can be weeded out.

One of the city outskirts MLA said that people generally opt for their native place because they have connection with the public representative in their villages. They also fear losing the benefits like Rythu Bandhu and others hence they will prefer voting in villages. “It is the problem for the MLAs from the city outskirts, which we need to address otherwise this will leave an impact on the outcome of the entire result,” said one MLA.

Another MLA said that the problem with the city voters is that the upper middle class and posh areas do not come for voting. It is the slums where majority of voting takes place and if these voters prefer going to their native places, it will leave a big impact, the MLA said.