Telangana CM predicts wider opposition to electoral-roll revision
Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has compared opposition to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls with the historic campaign against the Simon Commission. He also criticised alleged centralisation of decisions, raised concerns over southern representation and defended Telangana’s welfare programmes.
Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has predicted a nationwide movement against the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, comparing the controversy with the 1928 agitation against the Simon Commission. Speaking at a New Delhi conclave titled “India’s Next Chapter”, Revanth said the slogan “Sir Go Back” could emerge in the coming days.
He said leaders including Mamata Banerjee, Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray and M.K. Stalin could unite around the issue. The Chief Minister alleged that decisions concerning electoral rolls were being centralised in the Election Commission and claimed that artificial intelligence was being used in the process.
The source material did not include a response from the Election Commission to those allegations. Revanth also accused the Union government of not providing Telangana the cooperation that, he said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi received from the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when Modi was Gujarat’s Chief Minister. He said files relating to the Regional Ring Road, metro rail expansion and other projects were pending with the Centre.
He also alleged that investment opportunities, including a semiconductor project, were being shifted towards Gujarat. The Chief Minister said the issue should not be viewed as a north-versus-south dispute, but claimed it was becoming “Gujarat versus the rest of the country”. On delimitation, he argued that southern States could lose political representation if parliamentary seats were redistributed mainly according to population.
He also criticised what he described as the concentration of key Union portfolios in northern States and said southern States needed adequate representation. On welfare, Revanth defended the Congress government’s guarantees in Telangana, while acknowledging that governments had to balance welfare spending with development requirements. His remarks placed electoral-roll revision, federal resource distribution and political representation within a broader argument about the relationship between the Union and the States.
This independently written report is based on information supplied by the named publisher. Vertrix News has not independently verified the source report.