“We’ve known Balu since our childhood. We grew up together,” 30-year-old Mohammed Shareef said. He was referring to SV Balachander, the booth level agent (BLA) for polling station 210 under Hyderabad’s Musheerabad Assembly constituency.

Balachander, also a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been accused of submitting around thirty Form 7 applications to the polling station’s booth level officer (BLO).

A BLA is appointed by a recognised political party to assist voters while a BLO is an official government appointee of the Election Commission of India (ECI). Form 7 is used to seek the deletion of a person’s name from the electoral rolls if they are deceased, have shifted elsewhere or have two voter IDs.

The forms submitted by Balachander contain the names of Muslim residents from the same slum in Chikkadapally. They’re all his neighbours. None of the 30 names Balachander has submitted meet the criteria for deletion.

Congress BLA and the party’s Bhaglingampally division vice president Mohammad Baba........

© newslaundry