Telangana voters’ forum questions BJP opposition to Family Register Certificate
HYDERABAD: The Telangana Voters’ Rights Forum has questioned the state Bharatiya Janata Party’s opposition to the Family Register Certificate, saying the document could help poor, migrant, working-class and women voters facing difficulties in establishing their eligibility during electoral roll revision.
In an open letter dated August 3, the forum referred to reports that BJP member Marri Shashidhar Reddy had written to the Election Commission seeking exclusion of the Family Register Certificate as a document for voter identification in Telangana.
The forum asked the BJP to explain its objections and how it proposed to protect eligible voters who lacked other documents.
Forum says poor voters face documentation difficulties
The forum said its volunteers had been witnessing difficulties faced by people during the stringent voter registration revision process over the past few months and had brought them to the government’s notice.
It said it had long sought a Permanent Resident Certificate or Family Register Certificate based on information available with the government, particularly ration card data, to help disadvantaged groups.
The forum welcomed the state government order providing for the Family Register Certificate, saying ration card information was the basis for the document.
It said similar family-based documents had been introduced in Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. According to the letter, Uttar Pradesh has Parivar Pehchan Patra, while Karnataka introduced family ID cards in 2019-20.
The forum said these systems were also based on ration card data.
Migrants, women struggle to establish older electoral links
The forum said Hyderabad had attracted migrants from different parts of the country for more than a century. They included people from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as well as other states.
It said many people who had settled in Hyderabad for work and employment, or had been voting in the city for around two decades, were finding it difficult to establish links with the 2002 electoral roll.
The problem was particularly difficult for people who had not attended school, those who started working at a young age and women, the forum said.
Many of them did not possess documents specified by the Election Commission, particularly passports, it added.
The forum said women who had moved to Hyderabad after marriage decades ago could face particular difficulties. Some had lost their parents and, because of prevailing patriarchal practices, possessed few identity documents apart from ration cards and Aadhaar cards, it said.
It argued that a Family Register Certificate issued after verification by tahsildars could help such voters.
Forum asks BJP to substantiate ‘illegal’ voter allegation
Referring to allegations that the Family Register Certificate could help “unqualified” and “illegal” people, the forum asked the BJP to place any supporting evidence before the public.
“Who are the unqualified in your view?” the forum asked.
It pointed to migrant workers who had moved to Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana over several decades from within the state and from Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Bihar.
The forum asked whether people who had lived and worked in Telangana for years should be denied voting rights because they lacked specified documents.
It also asked whether the BJP could take responsibility for ensuring that no poor person was removed from Telangana’s electoral rolls.
The letter questioned the party on the position of undocumented poor and working-class Hindus and asked whether such people could lose their voting rights because of documentation problems.
The forum also sought the BJP’s position on requirements concerning birth details of women married decades ago. It asked what women unable to provide such details or identification documents should do.
The forum said Permanent Resident and Family Register certificates were among documents approved by the Election Commission and asked whether opposing the Telangana government-issued certificate could be considered opposition to the Commission’s provisions.
It said difficulties in producing documents affected women and elderly people across religions.
The forum asked whether the BJP believed poor people, women and people who had migrated from other regions, states and villages and settled in Hyderabad after working there for decades should be denied voting rights if they lacked the specified identity documents.
The open letter was signed by Padmaja Shah, retired faculty member of Osmania University; Meera Sanghamitra of the National Platform for People’s Movements; social activists Anjaneyulu Madduluri, Soumya K, Sheikh Salahuddin and Deepti Sirla; A Sunitha of the All India Feminist Alliance; independent journalist and social activist K Sajaya; Mary Dias of the All India People’s Mission; Kanneganti Ravi and Kiran Kumar Vissa of Rythu Swarajya Vedhika; P Shankar of the Dalit Bahujan Front; and educator and social activist Maria Tabassum.
