AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday asked the EC to accept PAN cards, driving licenses and ration distribution cards as identity proofs for voter verification during SIR.
Of the 12 identity proofs approved by the Election Commission, three are not available in Telangana, he told reporters after a meeting of Muslim organizations here.
The three documents are the permanent residence certificate, the Norwegian Refugee Register, and the family register (prepared by state or local authorities).
“The EC itself said that the list of 12 documents is not exhaustive. Therefore, it is necessary that they accept PAN card, driving license and food security card issued by the state government,” he added.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy urged efforts to include driving licence, ration card and other documents issued by the state government in the list of valid evidence for voter identification.
He said that since three documents in the approved list are not available in Telangana, the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary to the state government should formally inform the EC about the documents issued by the state government which could serve as substitutes.
He explained that permanent residence certificates and family records are not issued in Telangana and the National Register of Citizens has not been conducted in the state.
The special intensive review in Telangana is scheduled to take place from June 15.
The electoral roll will be prepared from June 15 to 24, followed by house-to-house verification from June 25 to July 24.
Raising concerns over the “anomalies” found during the pre-SIR mapping exercise in the state, Owaisi claimed that it had reached 90 per cent in one constituency.
He said that since the pre-SIR mapping used the 2002 electoral register, voters should not be penalized for any inaccuracies in the list issued by the European Commission itself, and called on the Commission to address the “anomalies”.
Noting that AIMIM’s efforts are aimed at ensuring that no eligible voter is excluded from the electoral rolls, he claimed that there are forces in the country that want to exclude some voters from the voter rolls. Some are even talking about making these people stateless, he said.
AIMIM has developed a mobile application for SIR containing voter lists for 2002 and 2025, he said, adding that it is the only party in the country to have made such an effort.
When asked if he was peddling fearmongering over SIR, Owaisi said he was making people aware of the issue and informing them about it.
He said that in Assam, the National Register of Citizens was conducted under the supervision of the Supreme Court, and Prime Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that citizenship would be granted to non-Muslims, while Muslims would have to approach foreigners’ courts.
He wondered whether this did not constitute discrimination.
He said the BJP government in West Bengal was talking about removing those excluded from the SIR list from the list of beneficiaries of the public distribution system.
“Please tell us how many infiltrators have been found in Bihar. It is a border state. The number is 57. How many of them are Muslims – eight or nine? So where are the infiltrators? Twenty-seven thousand voters in Bengal are waiting for the courts to hear their cases on SIR,” he said.
“They are not dead or duplicate voters. If there are infiltrators, where are they? You should ask the Election Commission of India – they have not said anything about Bihar,” he added.
He said that the European Commission mainly does the work of the National Population Register and the Norwegian Refugee Council as well, and that is the most unfortunate part.
Regarding the killing of three Indian crew members in a US military strike on a commercial ship off the coast of Oman, Owaisi condemned the US action.
US President Donald Trump claimed that he had “gone crazy” and was worrying the whole world.
He wondered whether US Central Command did not know how many ships were operating in the region, saying the entire region was in turmoil.
On the rejection of nomination of Congress candidate Meenakshi Natarajan for the Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, Owaisi said that it is necessary to disclose in the nomination form whether an FIR has been registered against the candidate.
However, he added that senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi – Congress Rajya Sabha member from Telangana – pointed out that the complaint against Natarajan was a private complaint.
