Hyderabad: Married women in Telangana may turn out to be one of the largest groups to find names missing from the electoral rolls when the Election Commission starts its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) later this year.Those involved in the pre-SIR mapping exercise in the state say more men are being mapped than women as booth level officers (BLO) start comparing names with the 2002 electoral rolls. Among them, married women are the most difficult to track, especially those born between July 1, 1987 and Dec 2, 2004. The exercise has so far mapped 53% of the voters overall across Telangana and just 28% in Hyderabad.Sources add that in many cases the women are being wrongly mapped as ‘progeny’ in their marital home, creating complex technical issues.“Puttillu” docs vs “mettillu” realityAs per the Election Commission guidelines, married women must be linked to their maternal home (puttinillu in Telugu) rather than their marital home (mettinillu). Political parties allege that this is disrupting the usual family mapping route, where a wife is mapped with her husband within the same household.Sources told TOI that the anomaly of booth level officers inaccurately mapping married women with their marital home is due to lack of understanding or training.Senior officials told TOI that a married woman’s vote will not be in the same booth or the same constituency in the 2002 election rolls as the rest of her family. In the first instance, it is difficult to trace her vote in 2002. If it is not traced, the names of her parents must be traced. If they are not traced, she must produce documents proving linkages to her maternal home.When the actual SIR exercise begins, women who migrated to other parts of the state after getting married years or decades ago do not have ready access to electoral details of their parents. If they are not listed in the 2002 rolls and fail to provide progeny linkages, they may receive notices asking for documents during the actual SIR, likely to begin in Telangana in April or May.AIMIM joint secretary S A Hussain Anwar, in a representation to the Telangana chief electoral officer, stated, “Errors are occurring during progeny mapping of married women, where booth level officers are incorrectly linking daughters-in-law to fathers-in-law and wives to husbands, under the mistaken assumption that all members residing in the same household fall within the same progeny category.”He added that these relationships do not fall under permissible progeny categories according to Election Commission norms. BLO applications are only allowed to map son, daughter, grandson, and granddaughter as progeny. “Daughters-in-law are not valid ‘progeny’ entries in the app, making such linkages technically invalid,” he added.CEO clarifies progeny ruleTelangana chief electoral officer C Sudharshan Reddy told TOI that married women cannot be treated as progeny within the husband’s family line. “Sister and brother who are children of a voter are progenies. Married women in their maternal household are not a progeny of electors there. She will be mapped with her parents. Married women below 40 will be linked to parents or, once SIR starts, they will be given the papers to be filled up and submitted with supporting documents,” he said.
