Voters who gave their 2002 SIR data remain unmapped in Telangana due to faulty software

A large number of voters in Telangana, who were diligent enough to fill the rolls with all the required details, are now literally on the receiving end of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls.

Investigations into the issue lead to glitches in the software developed and maintained by the Election Commission of India.

A number of notices have arrived from the Electoral Registration Officers’ offices categorizing voters as “unmapped”, actually referring to voters who have done due diligence and filled in their details from the previous SIR on the forms. All were asked to appear before the ERO with relevant documents.

“We spent sleepless nights rummaging through reels and reels of voter lists even before the counting phase started. It was not easy as name search was not possible then. After a few weeks we finally prevailed, found our family details and mapped them with our present names,” shared V. Swapna, a voter from LB Nagar, adding that he was careful when we filled the forms, the forms as recommended by the BLO Now we feel stupid that we did all this because all our family members got notification that our names remained unmapped with 2002 SIR. We have to stand in line with others who didn’t bother to fill in the details.

As happened during the enumeration phase, BLOs are not delivering doorstep notices at several places. Instead, they sit in community halls and wait for constituents to come and collect notices.

“I came to know about the notices in our names from a neighbor who went there to collect his. I followed him and collected mine. The notice says we are not mapped despite the 2002 SIR details on the forms. The BLO asked us to produce Aadhaar and proof of date of birth, which we did,” informed D. Sathish, another voter from RTC Colony, who vouched that his persons 02 were notified at least in SIR02. details.

An inquiry with the election officials revealed that many BLOs had not uploaded the 2002 details in the ECI mobile app on their mobiles, which eventually led to notices that the voters considered uncharted. However, the money doesn’t stop there.

“We could not upload details where there was even a minor name mismatch like using surname instead of initial and using caste names at the end of real name. The application just didn’t accept it,” the BLO said on condition of anonymity.

A total of 32,36,659 voters from the draft voter lists were grouped into the category of unmapped voters. Notices have been generated in their names with the date and time of the hearing to be conducted by the Electoral Registration Officer or the respective Assistant Electoral Registration Officer.

Published – 29 Aug 2026 18:48 IST