BJP claims many Rohingya names in Hyderabad voters list, demands probe

The BJP on Wednesday alleged that names of Rohingya Muslims have been illegally included in the voters list of 15 assembly seats in Hyderabad in Telangana as part of a "joint conspiracy" of the ruling TRS along with AIMIM and Congress and demanded a probe by the Election Commission.

A BJP delegation comprising Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, party general secretary Arun Singh and its national media head Anil Baluni met top officials of the Election Commission and submitted a memorandum.

After the meeting, Naqvi told reporters that despite clear instructions of the Union Home Ministry that Rohingya Muslims are not Indian citizens, they have been registered as voters in Telangana.

"The registration of Rohingya Muslims as voters is a clear violation of laws of the land. The Election Commission may institute a special investigation team to probe the matter," the BJP said in its memorandum to the Commission.

Naqvi blamed the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and the Congress for inclusion of these names in the assembly constituencies in Hyderabad.

"It is a combined conspiracy of TRS, AIMIM and Congress against the people of a particular religion," he alleged.

The party also demanded that electoral rolls of 15 assembly constituencies in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation be "rectified" before the assembly election, which is barely nine days away. Telangana is scheduled to go to polls on December 7.

The BJP has also alleged that there has been an inordinate increase in number of voters and volatile fluctuations in their numbers.

The ruling dispensation in Telangana has engineered registration of bogus voters in several ways, the BJP alleged in its memorandum while citing a case where it claimed that as many as 700 voters were registered on a single home address.